


Fairy tail:Endymion

by SolanaLeonhart



Category: Fairy Tail
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 05:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17238545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolanaLeonhart/pseuds/SolanaLeonhart
Summary: Almost ten years prior to the story, Igneel saves a young boy he finds injured in a forest and takes him home. The boy becomes Natsu's second teacher and first human friend. Sometime after they meet up later, the boy joins Fairy Tail. This is the story of their adventures with their friends in Fiore's most infamous guild.





	1. Chapter 1

A teenage boy with light brown hair that faded to blond and royal blue eyes walked down one of the streets of Magnolia. He wore a three quarter sleeved white shirt under a sleeveless black hoodie with a gold trim along with red pants and black shoes.

As he passed by the blacksmith shop, the man working there stopped what he was doing and grinned when he saw the boy. "Well, look who it is." The boy smiled and walked over to join him. "No need to ask how the job went...seeing as it's you we're talking about."

"Ah, you're exaggerating Marco-san but thanks. It did go well."

"I figured as much." The man, like so many who knew the teen, were already used to his modesty so this answer was very much expected. "So any luck on the other front?"

The boy shook his head "Your friend told me the same thing you did. I need to get the other pieces for any shot for him to have any shot at figuring it out."

"I thought so, and you can tell where they are?"

"Only if I'm near one but so far I'm out of luck."

"Well, I'll keep an eye out. If I hear anything, I'll let you know."

"Thank you."

* * *

 

"Man..." Natsu groaned as he sat down. "...Gramps can sure be uptight. That hurt."

Gray gave him an unimpressed look "What did you think he was going to do when you pretty much ruined most of his beer stock?"

"That's because you threw me into those kegs!"

"That's because you punched me!" The ice mage retorted. "Besides, you're the one who kept stomping around after that."

"Oi, you're the who froze me then!"

"I had to, ash brain! Alcohol's flammable. You could have destroyed the whole place back then."

"No, I wouldn't! I know it's flammable!"

"It's good that you do but really Natsu, your history speaks for itself." Happy deadpanned.

"I rest my case." Gray nodded at the cat with a grin.

"Happy!" The dragon slayer groaned.

"Jeez, stop blaming me for your actions. It's times like this that make me realize how much him keeping the peace made things so much better." Gray sighed.

"Took ya long enough!" Natsu huffed.

"You don't get to talk! You're one of the people who gives him the most trouble!"

"I do not!"

"Yes you do! It's only because he's got the patience of a saint that he doesn't complain. Some best friend you turned out to be! How he puts up with you is beyond me."

"Say what?!"

Happy rolled his eyes "Pot, this is kettle, you're black."

Judging by their interaction, Lucy could certainly see what that meant. This was only her second day here so she had a bunch of things to get used to. One of them being this. "I thought you were pulling my leg but really this never ends does it?"

"Aye..." He sighed. "...We've had enough time to know that it doesn't take much to start things between them."

"So who's this guy they were talking about? Does he really try to keep the peace around here?"

Happy nodded "Believe it or not, it actually works sometimes and by that I mean without any violence from him. He's off doing a job for the council. He can be a bit of a nag but that's only because..."

"Oh, really?" A new voice said and the two turned around to find the brown and blond haired boy giving Happy an unimpressed look.

"Sorry for being a nag then."

Happy smiled and jumped to the boy's arms "Hope!"

The boy caught him with a small smile, already too used to the cat's behavior to be annoyed. It helped that he was just as glad to see him and to have returned.

Happy's exclamation brought Natsu and Gray's attention to them.

"Oh, you're back. Faster than Wakaba and the others said too." Gray grinned.

Natsu snorted "Surprise, surprise. They haven't tried so they think it'll be a right pain but some of them keep underestimating Hope. You'd think they'd learn by now."

"Aye, it really is stupid," Happy nodded sagely. "Then again, they're just lazy."

"Ain't that the truth."

Hope sat down "Thanks for the vote of confidence but everything went fine. So who's your friend?"

"Oh yeah, she's Luigi! She's a new member." Natsu said.

"Hey!" Lucy scowled at him.

Hope seemed to realize what he was doing too because he just raised an eye before turning to the celestial mage "Well, it's nice to meet you, Miss..."

"It's Lucy, no need for the formalities and likewise." She told him with a smile, though she was surprised. This was the first time a male around here had been so polite to her.

"Right, I'm Hope Dreyar."

"Oh, so..." She blinked. "...hold on, Dreyar, as in...?"

"Yup, he's Master's grandson." Happy nodded.

"So that's why you were doing a job for the council?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Nah, that's just Hope trying to make a bad situation better." At her curious look, Gray explained. "You know a lot of us get into trouble with the council and all. It gives Gramps a lot of grief so Hope decided to take the jobs he can get done."

"Wow, you do that and you try to keep the peace around here? I'm impressed, that's remarkable."

Hope looked embarrassed. "That's no big deal, it just ended up that way..."

* * *

 

As Lucy watched Natsu and Hope talking, she couldn't help but note that this was the calmest mood she'd ever seen the dragon slayer in.

"You make it sound so simple even when you ended up destroying half the port." Hope remarked when Natsu finished explaining everything. "I get why you were mad at Bora but there's such a thing as overkill."

"I didn't mean to! I was just too concentrated on beating that bastard up and..." Natsu blinked, noticing an upset Makarov at the bar. "So why's Gramps moaning now?"

"He said something about having to use most of the money from my request to pay for the damages." Hope responded.

"Oh... were those bandits half as they cracked up to be?"

"Nope." Hope leaned back. "All their reputation was based on some made up stories."

"So kind of like that sleaze ball?"

Hope nodded.

"Well, fake or not, at least we did get to meet Lucy so that's a definite plus." Natsu said with a shrug.

"You're right."

Lucy seemed surprised by this but she smiled at the boys.

"But you've got to! I know where dad keeps his savings. I'm sure he won't mind if I take some for this. I can reward anybody!"

Startled, the three turned around to see Romeo arguing with Makarov.

"It isn't about the reward, we don't need that. I told you before. Your dad's a fairy tail wizard. He can handle himself."

"Don't you think I know that?! But it's been so long! I'm worried, this isn't like him. What if those monsters took him out? He could be hurt and you won't even help!"

"Your father has his own pride. He wouldn't like it if we do. I'm sure everything's fine."

Romeo grit his teeth and punched Makarov. "You're a bunch of jerks! Even when those nice people tried to help, you wouldn't do anything. Whatever! I don't need you!"

"You..."

"That's enough." Natsu ground out. "Oi, Romeo, where'd you say he went?"

"Oi, Natsu..." Wakaba began.

"Shut up! Where dd he go?"

Hope looked at Happy, who seemed just as serious and they shared a nod before standing up.

"Lucy, you want to come?" Happy asked.

"Eh?" She had a feeling that she was missing something here. "Oh, sure I guess..."

* * *

 

"So, just to check, Macao went off to get rid of 20 vulcans in the mountains and he's been missing for more than days now. Romeo tried to ask about him a bunch of times and he found some people willing to help look for him but even they haven't shown up yet?"

"That's about right." Lucy nodded to Happy's question. She still didn't see how anyone could fight so many monsters off but it wasn't the time to wonder about such things. "If you ask me, the kid had a point. He's been gone for this long, someone should have helped him already."

Hope didn't like this either but he decided to explain what he thought was the reason. "It wasn't that they couldn't. I think everyone was respecting Macao-san's feelings. Plenty of guild wizards take pride in their ability to finish jobs so they would pretty offended if someone stepped in to help him."

Lucy frowned in thought. She still didn't like it but she supposed it made some sense now. "Well, when you put it like that..."

"It's stupid!"

Lucy and Happy started as Natsu yelled out. The dragon slayer had been a little more than irritable ever since they left the guild so they mostly left him alone. But they all knew why. Natsu's foster father, the fire dragon king Igneel had disappeared years ago and they had yet to find any clues on his whereabouts. If anyone knew what it was like to be in Romeo's shoes, it would be him.

"Okay, try to calm down." Hope patted his shoulder. "It isn't anything like that. I think they could handed things better too but that's why we're here, right? We're going to find him."

Somehow when he said that, it gave of a feeling of certainty that made them relax a little. Even Lucy and she didn't know him that well, she wondered if it was Hope believed in their success so strongly that it just poured into his words.

Unbeknownst to her, Natsu was mostly thinking along similar lines. He already knew that Hope would spare no expense in their quest and he wasn't willing to settle with anything besides success. He would get carried away at times but Hope was a calm person by nature, and that helped calm others too.

He was right though, getting angry wasn't going to get them anywhere.

Natsu let out a breath "Yeah, let's go."

* * *

 

''Wow, that's some storm..."

"How the heck are you so calm about this?!" Lucy demanded. While it was good that Natsu had relaxed somewhat after Hope's words earlier, this was a little too much. There was a snow storm before them and he was acting like it was nothing! "I-It's freezing!"

"Yeah well, it can't be helped with you wearing that." Natsu responded, eyeing her up and down pointedly.

"You're not dressed any better!"

"I'm a fire mage, remember? This barely affects me."

That...was actually a good point. "Happy, you too?" She asked

"Yup! I can take it. Why didn't you get anything?"

"It's summer! I knew the mountains would be a little cold but not this much." She blinked when a warm object settled on her shoulders and realized it was Hope's coat. The boy just smiled when she met his eyes.

"I took it just in case but you look like you need it more."

"Ah, wait I can't..."

"Hope, she's just complaining but she can walk. You don't have to do that." Happy flew to the boy.

"Yeah, it's not worth the trouble!" Natsu added, looking concerned.

"What do you mean by that?!" Lucy demanded.

"Hey, don't be mean. It'll be fine. We can't leave Lucy like this. Feeling any better?" The brunet asked.

"Y-yeah..." She stood. "..you don't have to..."

"I want to. It's all right." Hope smiled warmly. "Not to be the bearer of bad news but we do need everyone to be in good shape. At least so we can handle whatever is causing the problem here."

"Thanks..."After the generous offer, Lucy decided to make sure she wouldn't slow anybody up. "...Okay, so should we get going?"

"We will but there's something I should do first." Hope put out an arm and closed his eyes. A faint gold aura surrounded him then, when he opened them, one of his eyes had turned into a silver shade.

"Is that some kind of magic?" Lucy asked Natsu.

"Yup, it needs a little concentration but Hope can see into really far distances. I guess the storm's going to make it a little hard but it can help us at least figure out where to start."

The blonde nodded in understanding, mentally agreeing with this.

Hope stopped a little while later and looked at them, his eye having turned blue again. "I haven't seen anyone but there were some footprints east so we should start there."

"Got it!"

* * *

 

"Th-that's huge!" Lucy exclaimed as they found the footprints.

"What, you've never seen a vulcan before? That's hardly any bigger than the ones in this area." Happy asked.

"No, just in books. Oh man...those pictures really don't do those things justice..."

"All those prints are heading up, right?" Natsu observed. "So then that thing would be hiding in some cave."

"So do we still keep going like this?" Happy asked.

"Maybe..."

Hope was about to speak but then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Moments later, he snapped his fingers and a gold sphere of energy appeared in his palm and he proceeded to hurl it in that direction.

A yelp followed this, startling the others and the group went to find a man on the ground, cradling his head which he had bumped against the big wall of solid light that Hope had created.

"Gah! What the hell...?!" The man stopped when he saw the group staring at him. "What do you kids want?!"

"Shouldn't we ask you that?' Happy asked as they all noticed his rifle, ignoring Lucy's freak out. The man must have been trying to get them just now, he was having trouble because of the bad weather.

"Who the hell are you?" Natsu demanded.

"W-we don't need you fairy tail mages getting in the way! We've got this!" The man retorted.

"Getting in whose way? We're here to look for a friend!" Happy said, looking confused.

"Oh, yeah...now that I think on it, that old guy must have been one of you, huh?"

"What? Oi, did you see Macao?" Natsu asked.

"It wouldn't matter if I did."

'What's that mean?"

"Isn't it obvious, brat? I saw someone fighting those vulcans and he told us to go before I could even tell him why we were there. Next thing I know, he vanished and those stupid vulcans showed up."

"Ah! But then you're the two who offered Romeo help!" Happy realized.

Something wasn't right, Romeo made those two sound real nice and kind but something about this man just seemed creepy and fake...

"Meh, it was just lucky we were around so yeah that's us. We were in the red and this is..." The man must have realized he said too many things because he promptly shut up. "This is all a misunderstanding. I'm a good guy too. I mixed you up for someone else and..."

"No, you didn't." Hope interjected, having caught on his slip."You're after money, aren't you? You heard the story about Macao-san and then you thought you found a good chance. Romeo's been worried sick over his dad all this time and you guys come along, pretending to be heroes when all you want is to take every jewel you can get your hands on. You must have heard Romeo trying to persuade any of the others into action and even reward them to help."

Nobody even had to ask if this was true because the man looked like he was caught red handed with his hand in a cookie jar.

"How'd you know?!" He blurted stupidly before catching himself. Clearly he hadn't expected anyone to spell their plans out so plainly.

"Ah, I mean..."

"Save it! You guys are the worst!" Lucy snapped, as her friends who glared at the man too. They were disgusted that he would take advantage of a kid like this.

"If we run into you here again, I'll beat you to a pulp. Is that clear?" Natsu snarled.

"C-c-crystal!" The man stammered.

"So, where's your partner?" Hope asked.

* * *

 

As the group traversed the snowy paths, headed towards the location they heard about from the man (whose name was Steiner), they were unaware that they were being followed by a figure...

Natsu stopped walking "Hey, does anybody else hear that?"

His friends looked at him, seeming confused. But Lucy was the one who understood...or rather saw what he was talking about.

"Look out!" She shrieked.

An avalanche was headed their way.

Natsu scowled "All right then, step back. Fire Dragon's Claw!"

The fiery waves that followed evaporated all the snow, making Lucy and Happy sigh in relief.

"Thanks, Natsu. Now we know where to go too."

Happy gave Hope a confused look "What do you mean?"

It was Natsu who answered "He means we get up there, we find the idiot behind this."

* * *

 

Two vulcans were in a cave, one of them was looking through a hole with an impatient look.

"Woman, woman, I want a woman!"

"Ah, shuddup!" The other snapped, throwing a rock on his head. "You're annoying. Just go find one!"

"You didn't have to do that! It really hurt!"

"That's the point! This place is freezing enough without you complaining and making it more annoying."

"You don't even live here! What made you come up to the mountains, stupid?"

"Oh, I'm stupid, you damn pervert?"

"Say what?!"

"You heard me, stupid, stupid, stupid!"

The group walked in on this scene. Happy gave them an unimpressed look "Wow...you know, guys, I sure didn't expect this. This reminds me of Natsu and Gray."

"Oi! Don't compare me to that thing!" The dragon slayer snapped. Hope stifled a laugh at this while Lucy just burst out giggling.

"I know what you mean." She nodded, the fight seemed just as stupid as the one she witnessed with the aforementioned wizards.

"Woman!" The white vulcan exclaimed happily with a grin.

Lucy recoiled, looking creeped out. "What's with this thing?!"

"What's a forest vulcan doing here?" Happy wondered, staring at the second one, who suddenly stiffened.

The creature paled "H-hey, you're...! W-w-why're you here?"

Natsu raised an eye "What's with him?"

"He's probably one of the bunch Erza traumatized that time. Remember?" Hope asked.

Natsu almost sorry felt sorry for the creature when he realized what that meant. Almost. "Oh, you mean...now I'm really glad we never saw her again that day..."

"You think he followed Steiner and his friend here?" Happy wondered

"Maybe, those monsters can be pretty persistent when they want to be." The dragon slayer said.

Lucy blinked "Now that you mention it, where's..."

"I want you!" The white vulcan leaped towards her, making her shriek again.

Flames surrounded Natsu's hands as an aura of golden light surrounded Hope. The first charged up a Fire Dragon's Iron Fist to send the vulcan reeling but he pulled himself and attacked again.

"Well then, try this, Luminous Tornado!" With a wave of his hand, Hope sent a strong burst of light with great speed that slammed the vulcan to the wall.

"Nice going, you guys!" Happy cheered while Lucy almost gaped at the strength of the light spell. She'd seen plenty of evidence on Natsu's strength back when they met but it seemed Hope was not to be underestimated either.

The vulcan snarled "Are you just going to stand there?! Or are you too chicken to deal with a bunch of kids?"

"I'm not a chicken!" The second snarled. "Once I get rid of them, you're next!"

He aimed a punch and charged with a cry. Lucy scowled "I'm not just going to watch. Gate of the Golden Bull, I open thee! Taurus!"

A humanoid bull holding an axe with a bell around his neck and brown boots appeared. He grinned widely, hearts appearing in place of his eyes when he glanced at Lucy. "Lucy-san, you have such a nice body! A lovely treat as always!"

"Wow, so beside the cranky fish lady Happy told me about, you've got a perverted cow?" Natsu deadpanned.

"I'm a bull!" Taurus snapped, only to be ignored.

Lucy sighed "I know what this looks like but Taurus is my strongest melee spirit. Just ignore the pervert attitude."

"That shouldn't be too hard. We've dealt with a good amount of those already." Hope remarked idly.

Natsu and Happy nodded before the first counted on his fingers "Gray, Macao..."

"Natsu, I don't think Gray should..." Hope began.

"He totally should, the stripper. Anyway, where was I?"

Happy helped him along "Wakaba, Loke, Gildarts, Master, and now Taurus. They're easy to see through and predictable."

"Gah...I'm so sad now..." Taurus' shoulders fell. "...Lucy-san's new friends are mean..."

Hope gave him an apologetic look "They're a little blunt but we could use your help right now. Er, I'm sure Lucy would appreciate it and they probably won't put you down when you show them your stuff."

The girl nodded to this, smiling. This cheered Taurus up "Oh! In that case..."

"Oi, don't ignore us!" The vulcans snapped.

"Well, you've had maybe ten chances to attack now if not more..." Hope pointed out, making the monsters stiffen as they realized it too while the rest of his friends laughed at their expressions. He was about to continue but then his eyes widened, one turning silver again for a second before his expression changed as if he suddenly realized something.

Hope's eyes narrowed as light magic swirled around him before he spoke again "...seeing as we can't have you running now...Aegis!"

A gold magic circle flashed around them before a dome shaped barrier enveloped the cave.

"Hope, judging by that name I'm guessing it's a protection spell. Trapping us with vulcans isn't the way to use it!" Lucy said, with a tone that held panic.

"It's supposed to trap them." The boy responded. "Guys, we found Macao-san and Steiner's friend."

"What?"

Natsu looked just as confused but he facepalmed when the answer hit him. "Aw, dammit, I forgot! Vulcans are body snatchers!"

"So they took over their bodies? How do we stop it?" Lucy asked.

"By making sure they can't keep it up. Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" Natsu's hit the white vulcan in the stomach, sending him reeling.

"All right then, take this!" Taurus swung his axe with all his might, hitting the second one and sending it crashing to the ground.

Hope started casting as the monsters got up, a gold magic circle appearing then. "Shining Torrent!"

The two vulcans were hit by a multitude of glowing waves. Taurus went up close to the enemies and struck the ground, causing it so shake and throw them off balance. Natsu and Hope capitalized on this chance.

"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!" Natsu tackled the white vulcan, cloaked in flames.

"Star Gladius!" Hope created four swords of pure light that hit the second vulcan, sending him into the air before they flew off and struck again from four directions, creating a four pointed star shaped energy blast for a moment before the vulcan crashed to the ground with his comrade.

Taurus smirked "And for the final touch...eat this!"

He hit the two vulcans once more and landed just in front of them, looking over his shoulder in time to see them glowing.

"That did it!" Happy declared with a grin.

* * *

 

"Thank you, thank you!" Steiner's friend, Ross, bowed his head, his silver hair covering most of his face then. Before the man quite knew it, most of his wounds were treated and he was back in Magnolia with them. "That vulcan possessed me and if it wasn't for you..."

"Just be glad that someone..." Natsu spared Hope a pointed look "...reminded me to cut you guys a break, even if you acted like scumbags. Don't do this again."

"I got it!" He promised at once. At least, unlike Steiner, he seemed sincere. They wished he really was. "It was Steiner's idea but I shouldn't have gone along with it. We'll just have to go and get a better job. Forgive us!"

"Oh, all right..." Lucy relented. "...at least you look like you mean it. I guess you've had enough punishment after that pathetic plan. Just make sure you really sort things out next time."

"You'd better." Macao agreed with a threatening look.

"I promise." Ross nodded and left.

Macao sighed "Man, count on Hope to go that far even after what they did."

"Hey, come on, it's not like any of you would have left him in that place. Besides, my magic wouldn't have worked as well in fixing you both up if I hadn't acted quickly." The brunet pointed out.

"We're saying you're too nice. If it was up to us, we wouldn't let them get off so easy." Happy said, getting agreement from Natsu and Macao.

"Well, it worked out, right? It looked like he meant it. If they haven't learned, we'll just deal with that if we see them again."

Happy considered that "True..."

"Dad!"

Macao smiled at the voice and ran to meet Romeo, who stood at the top of the stairs. The boy grinned widely and hugged him. "I'm so glad you're okay! Sorry, forget anything I said before..."

"Nah, it's okay," Macao patted his head. "I beat 19 vulcans you know?"

"Wow, really?"

"Yup, I'll tell you all about it too."

Romeo smiled "Okay, but first..." He looked back at the group. "...Thanks, everyone! Dad's okay because of you."

"Yeah, I really owe you all." Macao nodded.

Natsu grinned, crossing his arms behind his head while the other three smiled "Ah, don't sweat it."

"We're glad everything worked out all right." Happy added.

"Yeah, you must have some catching up to do so we'll see you later." Hope said.

"Yeah!" Romeo ran to his father and the two walked away.

Lucy stretched her arms as they began to leave "Well I wasn't too sure about things then but everything's okay."

"You say that but you did freak out a lot." Happy reminded.

"Well, excuse me! You guys are used to the dangers on a job, I'm not."

Natsu spoke before Happy could respond "You know, I've been thinking, how about we form a team, Hope? Everyone's sayin' how good the missions we do together goes and we'd make a sweet group."

"That sounds good, anyone else you had in mind?" The boy smiled.

"Lucy, for starters."

The blonde blinked "Me? You guys don't mind?"

"Why would we? We handled things good today, right?" Hope pointed out.

"Yeah, what do you think?" Natsu wanted to know.

She smiled "I'd like that. I'm in!"

"Cool! So it's settled."

"Hey guys, you're not forgetting about me, right?" Happy fretted.

"No way!" The boys responded before Hope added "If it's us, you're a given, Happy, that's why we didn't mention you."

Natsu nodded while the cat sighed in relief.

"Then it's settled."

Hope blinked when they reached the street leading to his home. "This is my stop. Bye, everyone."

"Bye!"

"Later."

"See you tomorrow!"

The brunet stopped for a moment when he felt a familiar warmth surrounding him but then smiled and continued walking. He purposefully lowered his voice before speaking "So, what'd you think of that?"

'I thought it was bound to happen sooner or later.' A male voice inside the Hope's head replied before a translucent figure of a small phoenix with four wings appeared. The figure had golden feathers all over except for the tail feathers, which were a myriad of colors. He had warm amber eyes as well, a sharp orange beak and similar talons. 'I can picture us making a good team.'

"For sure. Thanks for your help today, any reason why you were so quiet before?"

'You're welcome. As for the second part, I think you know why.'

Hope sighed, realizing he did. "Well, I guess explaining our situation is...tricky."

'That's putting it nicely. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.'

"Best thing we can do, I guess."

Lucy smiled as she watched Natsu and Happy argue about dinner, reflecting on how most of the people she met here have been nothing but kind and friendly.

"Yup, I'm definitely going to like it here." She murmured, glancing at the pink Fairy tail mark on her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Mirajane watched the usual activity around the guild and smiled, noting that it was the same as always. Some squabbling, others fighting on a side while the rest chatted merrily or did what they had in mind but she wouldn't have it any other way.

Her eyes widened when she saw Gray choking on his sandwich and quickly gave him a glass of water.

He gulped it in one and sighed "Thanks."

"No problem, what happened? You just jumped."

"I don't know, I heard the door slam..." The two turned at that note and saw Droy enter.

"Erza's coming back!"

The sentence might have been simple but it caused a resounding silence. Then everyone hurried to straighten their acts, Cana put away the barrel of beer she was drinking from, Gray put on his clothes (after Mira pointed out that he stripped again, much to his chagrin).

"Should I be worried about this?" Lucy asked Natsu after watching him put his plate and glass in the kitchen and come back, clearly having made sure there were no more crumbs on him.

He looked at her and made a thinking noise "Nah, you're good."

"Somehow this doesn't make me feel any better...wait..." Lucy blinked. "...wasn't Erza that person you and Hope talked about before? The one who apparently traumatized the vulcans?"

He nodded and she raised an eye "Isn't that pushing it?"

"Nope, you'll get the point when you see her."

* * *

 

After watching her in action for a few minutes, Lucy could understand what he was talking about.

At first, she couldn't believe she hadn't recognized the name. Erza Scarlet, she was Titania Erza! The strongest woman in Fairy tail and one of the guild's S-class mages. She was just as beautiful as Lucy had heard too. Her red hair which matched her name was almost as long as Lucy's own and her brown eyes were cool and assessing, giving her a strict air.

It took Lucy a couple of minutes to find out that she really was strict. After learning Makarov was at the masters' meeting, the first thing Erza did was criticize almost everyone she laid her eyes on (though for some reason she couldn't decide how to chew Macao off). Everyone immediately did as she told them too, while the rest just gave her timid and frightened looks. Lucy had never imagined the guild could be so quiet. Even Natsu and Gray had stopped their fighting and were pretending to be best friends. She could tell that Erza must be _really_ scary if everyone acted like this.

"I've got no words for this..." She said at last.

"I can't blame you. Erza's got that effect on people." Happy informed.

Some people near the door stiffened when they heard footsteps, but then they thought nothing could be worse than dealing with Erza, right?

They prayed it wasn't anymore trouble...

Luckily, the new arrival was as far from trouble as you could get in their books. 

"Hope?" Jet managed while the rest eased up a little.

"Yeah," the boy responded, looking puzzled. "What's going on?"

"In short..." The orange haired speed mage pointed at the bar where Erza was talking to Mirajane.

Hope smiled when he saw the scarlet haired woman. "Oh hey, Erza, so you came back."

The two women looked at him and smiled back before she responded "Well, hello there, Hope. How are you?"

"Pretty good. You?"

"Same here."

* * *

 

Some people watched them talk while the rest went to find something to do.

"I don't get it. Everyone's acting so stiff around her except Hope and Mira-san." The blonde stated.

Aforementioned waitress tilted her head a little "Actually, I noticed that too. They really over do it and act all weird, don't they?"

"No, I'm pretty sure you two are the weird ones here." Happy deadpanned.

* * *

 

Natsu was staring at the huge item Erza had brought "Uh, what the heck is that?"

"It's a horn from the monster I was asked to defeat. Seems the townspeople were so glad to see it gone that they decorated it for me. It was very kind, don't you think?"

"If you say so. It's just weird to bother dragging it the whole way."

"This, coming from you?" She retorted with a raised eye.

Natsu knew she was talking about the state of his house. "Hey, I gather souvenirs! They're nice stuff. Stuff I know I can keep well enough. What the heck are you going to do with that?"

Gray raised an eye "Yeah, I'm pretty sure even Erza wouldn't want any decoration advice from you, Ash brain."

"What's that supposed to mean, Ice princess?!"

"Only that your house is a dump."

"It is not a dump! If anything, your place is!"

"How would you know!? I wouldn't let you near my place at all!"

Natsu's retort was cut off by a cough that made the two freeze and glance at Erza.

"Do I hear fighting?"

"N-no!" They said together.

"Why would we fight? We're best friends! We get along great!" Gray added.

Erza nodded "Good."

Lucy sweat dropped, reasoning that Erza must have been distracted or something because she really couldn't see why the redhead would fall for the act. She couldn't have, right?

Happy rolled his eyes but decided not to comment just this time. Their fights happened so much now that he was just exasperated. "Erza, weren't you going to ask something before you got sidetracked?"

"Oh, that's right." The redhead paused. "The truth is, I passed a bar earlier and I heard a strange rumor. It seems the dark guild Eisenwald is planning something and they're heading to Clover Town. It involves something called Lullaby apparently. Unfortunately, I didn't recognize the guild's name until later."

"And you want some help along?" Natsu clarified.

She nodded "Right, you, Hope and Gray."

"Hold it! Hope's fine with me but you want him with us? He'll just slow us down!" Natsu scowled.

Gray normally would've been annoyed at this but now definitely wasn't the time. "Idiot."

Erza's eyes narrowed "Didn't you just say you were getting along?"

"O-oh, right!" The dragon slayer said, recalling the lie. "Never mind me!"

"Hey, so I can't come?" Happy whined.

Hope smiled and picked him up "I don't think she means it like that. If Natsu's coming then she knows you are too. Right?"

"Right. Apologies, Happy. You can come." Erza assured. "Does that mean I can count on you?"

"Of course." Gray said with a raised eye.

"Really, Erza, you should know the answer." Hope responded.

"Yeah, come on!" Natsu added.

She smiled in response, giving them a grateful look. They might not always get along but the four of them were definitely comrades.

"Still...they're going to Clover Town at the same time as the guild master's meeting." Hope frowned in thought. "At least we have an idea about their plan."

Gray's face lit up in realization. "...Yeah, it's way too much of a coincidence. Dammit, if those creeps go after Gramps and the other masters..."

"We'll just have to make sure they don't succeed. That's that." Erza said firmly and they nodded.

* * *

 

The next day came and everyone except Erza were at the train station.

"...Anyway, Hope's like a walking peacemaker so he tries to talk them out of it. Erza just beats them up senseless almost every time she saw them fight." Happy informed when Lucy questioned Natsu and Gray's odd behavior around her.

"I thought it was something like that..." She shook her head in exasperation. "...Of course, with how they fight like an old couple it just got worse and worse, huh?"

Happy and Hope laughed at the remark but the first answered "Yup."

"Oh good," they turned to see Erza. "Everyone's here."

"Good mor...what's all that?!" Lucy gaped at the great amount of bags she had.

"It looks like she's moving her whole house with her, doesn't it? Erza's really careful about not leaving out anything she might need on jobs." Hope informed.

"Okay but this seems a little too much..."

"Meh, we're used to it." Natsu said dismissively.

The latest arrival looked at Lucy "Oh, you were in the guild yesterday. New member?"

"Yeah, I'm Lucy. Mira-san thought I should come with you to pick some experience...if that's okay?"

Erza smiled kindly "Of course, you're more than welcome to join us."

* * *

 

Once they were all settled in their cabin, Gray swiftly pulled Natsu so that he could sit by the window. His face was rather pale with an almost blue hue as he let out a moan.

"Man, I can't remember..." Happy's forehead creased as he continued to think hard. "...There was something I had to tell Lucy but I forgot what it was.'' 

The blonde gave him a curious look "It's funny now that you mention it. The name Lullaby sounds familiar but I can't tell why...Make sure you tell me if you do remember."

Happy nodded "You too."

Natsu groaned "Why do we have to go by train? What's wrong with walking?"

"For the last time, it's way too far to walk." Gray said irritably. "Talk about pathetic. I can understand motion sickness but you're taking it too far."

"That's motion sickness? It does seem intense..." Lucy trailed off.

"Yeah, we think it's related to his magic." Erza informed.

The blonde remembered something "Hope, can't you fix him up? You did great with Ross and Macao."

"My magic doesn't work like that. The ideas I tried were no help."

"But I thought healing magic could..." Lucy began.

"I knew it was that. Hope's not a healer, he's a Memoria Templar." Gray interjected.

"Seriously?" Lucy had heard about the mages who were born with the power to control time to an extent. What she had thought to be healing magic was really Hope's reversing the time on a body to before they were injured. "I know templars can restore and stuff but I never thought it worked that well."

"We had the same reaction but Hope's just that good and..." Happy's stomach growled. "...Oh yeah, I forgot we didn't have time to eat."

"Then we can do that now. No rush, it's lunch time anyway." Gray stood.

Erza scowled "You're awfully relaxed even knowing what we do. We can't take this mission lightly! If we do, we'll fail!"

Lucy, Gray and Happy all looked to nervous to respond, even Natsu, sick as he was, tried to inch away from her. To them it looked like she was emitting a particularly intense, angry aura.

Fortunately for them, one person managed to respond. "No one's taking it lightly. But there's no point getting too wound up about it, that's just as bad. We can just start working on a plan now and ruining anyone's chances for lunch isn't doing them favors anyway. How about we take things at a good, reasonable pace?"

The three looked from Hope to Erza, wondering how he could be so easy going now. Happy and Gray had seen this before but it sure didn't help them get it.

Not that they were complaining, mind you.

Erza let out a breath "You're right. I'll keep that in mind."

Hope just smiled "Then let's go."

"First things first..." The boy looked confused at this until she knocked Natsu out with a punch and let him lay on the couch.

"Just like that?" Lucy mumbled.

"Whatever works, right?" Erza asked in return.

"...Forget I said anything." Lucy saw Hope sigh with an exasperated face. Somehow she got the feeling this was completely normal for Erza.

* * *

 

A while later...

"You idiot!" Two voices cried.

"Who's the idiot here?! You let them just pick you up!" Gray snapped.

"I was sick! Who's the one who let the creeps sneak up on him?!" Natsu demanded.

"That's it! Next time, I'm not lifting a finger to help you, you ungrateful jackass!"

"Oh, what am I going to do?" Natsu said in a mock-worry tone before he got serious. "Obviously I'm gonna to be just fine without some annoying ice princess pretending to be useful!"

"What?!"

Gray never got to finish because that was when Erza ended the fight by punching them both with enough force to knock them down.

"Stop this right now! How long are you going to insist on behaving like children?"

"He started it!" The two protested, pointing at each other. The response didn't do much besides prove the redhead's point though.

It didn't take long for them to start glaring at each other then. Apparently, they were so frustrated that they just started venting then.

"I'm going to make you pay for that one, Ash brain!"

"That's my line, icy pervert! While you're standing there, put your clothes on!"

Gray blinked "Oh, crap!" He quickly did so.

"Jeez, you idiot..."

Erza hit them again "Enough already!"

Lucy groaned "Would you all get your priorities straight already?! This is so not the time to fight!"

What lead to this? Well, let's back track a few minutes.

Just after the group had lunch and got all the known details about the job out, the train arrived at its destination. But as they were about to leave, they were trapped by a sort of shadowy veil and seemingly hurled out of the train and found themselves in a wasteland. Natsu had woken up in time to see a group of men surrounding them all, declaring that they wouldn't let anyone get in their way. It didn't take them long to get rid of the attackers, realizing that they were really from Eisenwald.

Happy sighed as he watched the rising argument. He looked at Hope. "Tell me you got some way to make them stop."

"I do..." He created a sphere of light and threw it towards Natsu, Gray and Erza. It burst, creating a wave that pushed them away from each other.

"Hope! What are you doing?" Natsu demanded.

"I needed some way to get you to stop. " He responded. "It's true that none of us were prepared to deal with them right then but what you're doing now is making things worse. If you're angry, take it out on Eisenwald. We're never going to do the job right if we don't work together. I know you can pull that off no problem but you need to calm down. I think it's time we get serious and show that guild not to underestimate Fairy tail."

The three started to look ashamed as his words sank in. This was hardly the first time he intervened to stop their fights but they were thankful for his temperament. Hope was calm, though also concentrated at the problem, which was exactly what was needed.

"You're right, Hope." Erza kicked herself for losing her temper, she was the one who insisted for them to get serious at first too...

"Okay, so...what should we do?" Gray asked. He was partly relieved because if this had been anybody else, things wouldn't have ended so simply.

Hope conjured up a large, translucent light sphere which started to float in. "Get in, we'll work things out on the way."

"All right!"

They stepped in and a pair of golden wings appeared on Hope's back before he flew, with the sphere quickly following him.

Lucy looked at Happy "Hey, it was just like you said."

He grinned "I told you. Now everyone's good to go, we'll teach Eisenwald a lesson."

* * *

 

Meanwhile, in Oshibana Town where the train stopped, the members of Eisenwald were already laughing at the group's misfortune. One of their members, Kageyama, had been on the train and happened to overhear some of the Fairy tail mages' talk. He'd then used a lacrima to contact his guild mates and they worked to set the trap up and keep them away while they got on with their plan.

"I can't believe those were fairy tail mages. Did you see that kid with the pink hair? He looked so pathetic back there!" One of them cackled.

"Like he's the only one? I guess what we heard about the guild is just plain rumors. I don't even care how they found out anymore. They don't stand a chance." Kageyama smirked.

Something struck the ground before him then, it released a large burst of light that blinded anyone nearby.

"Hey, what the..."

"Whoa!"

"When did they..."

"?" Kageyama frowned and forced his eyes to open, seeing that Team Natsu had arrived.

Natsu's fist blazed as he smirked "All right, come get some!"

* * *

 

"Eat this!"

Gray's eyes narrowed at the sight of the numerous energy blasts coming at him before he cast "Ice Make: Lance!"

An array of ice lances ripped through the blasts while the rest hit the attackers.

Seeing this, some of the grunts dropped the idea of magic and charged in, weapons at the ready.

Erza took matters into her hands then. She took out a sword and attacked swiftly, taking most of them down. She then turned around, spinning the sword and cutting anyone nearby.

"So you're finally up, brat?" Kageyama addressed Natsu. "You should have stayed down and spared yourself the trouble. You're not going to stop us!"

He conjured a black magic wave that stuck the ground before pulsing up to strike Natsu in the face.

"Nice try, Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" The dragon slayer hit the ground, creating a fiery wave that stopped Kageyama's spell. The man was bewildered to see that Natsu had disappeared then.

"Hey, knuckle head, over here!" Kageyama whirled around only to be hit it in the gut with Natsu's fist before the latter grabbed him arm and tossed him over his shoulder towards some of his guild mates.

"Kageyama-san!"

"No way!"

But Kageyama pulled himself up "What're you gaping at?! Move it!"

"Yeah!" A group of six men grabbed the rifles on their back and prepared to fire. But then all of the weapons were shot out of their hands by some quick bullets.

"Ow!"

"What the..." The speaker looked for the source to find Hope standing to their left with two blue, black and gold pistols drawn. The smoke coming from them showing that he had just used them.

The weapons started to glow as Hope poured some magic in them. When the light faded, they were revealed to be replaced with a pair of blades which had hilts the same color as the pistols.

The blades sent out a speedy magic blast that stopped the first enemy before he realized that Hope had closed in on him and slashed his arms, making him fall towards his comrades. When the next one tried to use a fire spell, Hope cast Aegis to nullify it before striking the man's chest and blasting him down when one of his weapons changed for into a pistol again. He took anyone else that tried to get at him with similarly precise and powerful strikes.

"You got the hang of those, nice." Gray praised with a glance at the pistol.

Hope just smiled "Thanks, I learned from the best."

"You guys were great..." Lucy stopped when she noticed more of the grunts coming. "...Oh for the love of all that's good. You're obviously out of your league so why don't you just quit? Gate of the Crab, I open thee! Cancer!"

A humanoid red crab wearing a light blue shirt and dark pants and shoes emerged. "I'm here, ebi!"

"Take those guys out!" Lucy commanded.

"Gotcha," two scissors appeared in his hands and in a few moves, Cancer managed to cut down the weapon, clothes and in some cases even the hair of some grunts before taking them out.

Happy burst out laughing at their expressions "I like this guy already!"

"Yeah, not half-bad." Natsu nodded.

Erza gave a bemused look "Interesting way to fight."

"Don't start celebrating just yet!" A man in dark robes that seemed floating in mid-air arrived.

"Erigor-san!" Kageyama smirked.

The man sneered "This is the bunch giving you all trouble, Kageyama? Pathetic."

"S-sorry! That won't happen again!"

"Damn right it won't. I've got everything ready..."

Erza's eyes narrowed as she realized who this must be, hardly noticing that Kageyama and some of the other Eisenwald members who could fight were starting to move. "You're the grim reaper Erigor, am I right?"

Erigor looked at her "Well, so you heard of me? I don't know how you brats found out about us but you should have stayed away. See, you're all going to die here!"

"Big words from a jackass, come on here and put your money where your mouth is!" Natsu taunted.

"Why should I? Everything's set." Erigor snapped his fingers. A magic circle appeared, seemingly conjuring powerful waves of wind. He watched calmly even as some of his own comrades were blown away by the spell.

"Finally, you flies are going to watch as we play the Lullaby to the idiotic geezers in Clover Town." He smirked.

"So Hope was right. You're going after the masters!" Happy scowled.

Erigor raised an eye "Oh, so you realized that? I'm impressed, not that there's nothing you can do about it."

"Oh yeah?!" Natsu charged, fist at the ready.

Erigor raised an arm, the wind started to grow strong to resemble a hurricane that pushed Natsu to the ground almost immediately.

"What the..."

Natsu sat up with a grunt, cringing as he grabbed his arm, which had been cut by the sudden burst.

"The heck...? That wind felt like a sword!"

"It'll only get worse from here! Later, Fairy flies!" Erigor started to fly away.

"No!"

"He's gone..." Erza glared at the wind barrier, which had already concealed the spot they could see Erigor from. "...and they're going after the masters after all. What now?"

"He mentioned Lullaby again. What's up with that?" Gray wondered after trying an ice spell which was crushed by the fierce wind blocking their way.

"Oh man..." Lucy paled as a memory came back to her. "...I read about it. Guys, Lullaby's the song of death. It's a cursed flute that kills anyone who listens to its melody."

"What?!"

Natsu grit his teeth, standing up once Hope finished taking care of his injuries. "Then we gotta step on it!"


	3. Chapter 3

Gray internally cursed as he stared at the wind barrier "There's got to be something we can do! Hope, don't templars have a way to erase spells?"

Hope bit his lip and Natsu frowned at the ice mage "If he knew how to use that, he would've done it already!"

The truth of the matter was that Hope was fairly new to memoria magic. Some time had passed since they found out he was a templar and the discovery motivated him to try and learn it. But he was just getting started. Athena's veil and Rescindo wave, the spells to restore living and non living things came the easiest. Yet there was still his light magic and he couldn't just abandon it all together especially after all the work he put it, he still needed to train more to learn the other spells.

"Then we just have to find something else. Let's start with questioning the Eisenwald members we can find." Erza said.

"Right!"

* * *

 

Meanwhile, in Clover Town, the guild master's meeting was well under way. Some of the leaders were bragging about their respective guild while others were reminiscing about their adventures while the rest talked about the rumors they picked up from here and there.

Currently, Makarov and his friends Masters Bob and Goldmine, the guild masters of Blue Pegasus and Quattro Cerberus respectively were all talking about the stories involving Lucy.

"Well, if it's true that she knocked out a vulcan so easily then I guess she is a super rookie." Bob mused.

Goldmine smirked "Makarov wouldn't know, seeing as he's probably been staring at her the same way he's been eyeing up those models in the magazines he keeps picking up."

The fairy tail guild master chuckled sheepishly, knowing there was no point in denying that. It was a guilty pleasure of his and they were well aware of it. "Ah well...she's been doing pretty good. If you see her, you'll know she's as lovely as any of those models."

Goldmine shook his head in amusement but said "Anyway, you're still getting in trouble with the council, huh?"

"Who cares about those stiffs?" Makarov said at once. "I hate to say it but I think I'm used to that kind of trouble."

"Can't blame ya, though they seem to like your grandson."

"Yeah, it's hard not to. Hope helps keeps them off my back, that's always a bonus."

Goldmine laughed "I'll bet. But on that subject...I keep thinking the kid reminded me of someone but I can't say who."

"You did say that before..." Bob recalled.

"You're probably overthinking this." Makarov had a bad feeling about this subject and he really wished it wasn't right. It was better to steer away from the dangerous waters just in case.

"I guess you're right. Still, if the kid was related to you by ways besides adoption, I'd be shocked."

Makarov blinked "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, come on, he's nice, polite and I bet he'd be real charming if he wanted to be. When you were his age, the same couldn't be said for you. You've barely improved even now. "

"I am not!" Makarov looked offended while Bob just laughed. "Where do you think Hope gets it? Besides, you're..."

The three stopped when a pigeon flew to Makarov and landed on his shoulder, lowering its neck with a letter in its mouth.

"Oh, thanks little guy." Makarov took and opened it.

A magic circle flashed, revealing a hologram of Mirajane. This brought the attention of the people nearby who eyed her with clear admiration and appreciation. Not that it was a surprise, Mirajane was an attractive and famous person who had many fans after all.

"You lucky dog, having her in your guild." Goldmine smirked.

"Really! She's as adorable as ever!" Bob smiled.

Makarov just grinned, turning to the hologram when it greeted him. "I hope everything is going well. Everything's fine here. I wanted to tell you that Natsu, Gray, Erza, Hope, Lucy and Happy have become a team. Erza took them on a job just a little while ago, seems like it could be the birth of Fairy tail's strongest team, right?"

"Now that I didn't see coming, ri...Makarov?" Bob raised an eye when he saw the man's shocked expression.

A team with some of his most notorious troublemakers put together? He didn't know about strongest but it was hands down the most chaotic team Makarov could think of. He knew Hope would try to keep things well and sort out problems but there was a limit to how much the boy's methods could work, especially with them together. From what he picked up about Lucy, he could tell the blonde was sensible enough to try and help there, which could only be a plus but how much would that work? Experience told him that Happy enjoyed having trouble like Natsu so things weren't reassuring at all. Erza might try to sort out fights but when riled up she was as bad as Natsu and Gray and don't even get him started on those two...

Makarov only prayed that no trouble would take place until he got back. It wasn't too much to ask right?

* * *

 

Sadly, he was right in a sense. The trouble he feared was already spreading in the station as the team kept looking for any information. The Eisenwald grunts didn't really know much. They didn't care that they were left behind, just as long as Erigor would do what he set out to. Happy lucked out when he overheard one of them mention that Kageyama would be able to do something about the barrier, though he was quickly smacked by his partner for his mouth. That was pretty much a tip off as far the fairy tail mages were concerned and they changed their plans to finding Kageyama.

Gray's eye twitched in annoyance "We really need to find a way to control Erza. She keeps knocking everyone one of those chumps out!"

"Yeah, it's either that or she'd scare them all stiff..." Lucy muttered, shaking her head. Controlling her seemed like mission impossible to Lucy though, she really wanted their other idea to work.

A fair distance from them, Natsu knocked out a grunt who was trying to sneak up on him and Hope before turning to the boy, whose hetero-chromatic gaze was scanning the area. Hope let out a breath and stopped the sight spell before speaking "Kageyama is in that tower's basement. I think he found out what we're up to, it looks like he's trying to conceal himself with magic."

"Fat chance of that, let's roll!"

Hope nodded and followed Natsu to the aforementioned tower.

* * *

 

"Damn brats...if it wasn't for them I'd actually be doing something useful..." Kageyama grumbled to himself quietly as he finished using his shadow magic. One of the other members, Rayule, had warned him to lay low since someone blabbed and now the enemies were after him.

He was relieved that Erigor had left to make sure their plan worked, at least. All he had to do was keep this spell up and buy him as much time as possible.

Little did he know that he was out of time.

Something hard and cold slammed into him all of a sudden, pushing him to the ground.

"Gah! What the..."

"Sure you didn't over do it? We need to talk to him." Happy's voice sounded.

"Nah, I know what I'm doing." Gray responded.

"Ice?" Kageyama muttered a moment later as he pulled himself up. "How the heck did they find me?"

The basement was already very dark when he arrived and his shadow magic capitalized on that and enforced that darkness to give him a very good hiding place. It should have spread through at least half the tower by now...

Grunting, he cast a wave of shadows that went to strike them. He saw something white flash for a moment before it suddenly got a lot colder. Kageyama realized a little too late that his ice was forming over his body, startling him into stopping the spell he was going to use next.

"That's more like it." Gray said as he hauled the man up, suddenly being able to see better. "If Hope was right, and he pretty much was most of the day, you already know what we want from you."

Kageyama snarled "Yeah, I do. Get this straight, I'm not getting rid of the seal!"

"Gray, look out!" They heard Happy call a moment later.

Startled, the two turned around to see Rayule, having snuck up then with a black sword forming over his hand...

...which was destroyed by a shining bullet that hit his shoulder a moment later.

"What?" Kageyama stared as Rayule howled in pain.

Smirking, Gray turned to the room's entrance where Hope and Happy stood before giving the templar a thumbs up, which he nodded back to before they joined him.

"You damn brat...!" Rayule growled. "Urumi!"

Sharp tendrils of darkness surged to strike them. Gray was forced to let go of Kageyama to prepare a defense but Hope was ahead of him. "White Shield!"

A shield that looked similar but was smaller than Aegis appeared around the fairy tail mages to stop the attack.

"Ice make: Knuckle!"

Rayule's eyes widened at the flurry of icy knuckles flying towards him and he quickly ducked, even jumping behind Kageyama at one point. The man scowled when he noticed this.

"Why you little..."

"Where do you think you're going?!" Gray demanded, punching the man hard in the gut then and freezing him right then. "Much better."

Hope eyed Kageyama closely before putting his pistol away "We're done then."

The man glared back "Who do you think you are, kid? Underestimating me..."

"It won't matter if I underestimate you or not seeing as you can't fight now anyway."

Kageyama's eyes widened while Happy and Gray looked confused. "What..."

The Eisenwald mage let out a breath, knowing he was caught "...He means Rayule one upped me when he realized you lot found out where I was. I'm kidding myself by thinking I can fight any of you now. It took a lot out of me just to cast this spell."

"How'd you know, Hope?" Happy asked.

"I had a feeling, he hasn't moved all the time we've been here. More importantly, how about we get to the reason we came here?"

"Oh, right! Kageyama has to remove the seal!"

Kageyama scowled "DIdn't I say? I'm not helping you brats for anything."

Gray smirked "Oh, I wouldn't be too sure, buddy. We're not the ones you have to worry about."

Happy took on a similar expression "Yeah, you'll be helping us faster than you can say Lullaby!"

* * *

 

Happy's prediction came true. Why? Simple, one would have to be a complete moron to get in Erza's way when she was on a mission. Especially now.

Let's face it, the poor guy didn't stand a chance.

"So why couldn't I help catch that guy?" Natsu demanded.

"Would you give it a rest? We were both asked to stay up but you don't see me complaining." Erza said.

Lucy rolled her eyes "I don't pretend to know what Hope had in mind but if I had to guess, it's probably because the two of you can't seem to be subtle at all. We needed a sneak attack."

"Hey, I can be sneaky and subtle!" Natsu protested.

"No, you can't. Why are you acting like this is a contest anyway? We've got what we set out for."

Happy was about to speak, possibly wanting to tease Natsu but refrained when he saw something on the ground close to the station, currently in the direction they were heading in. "Is that a lacrima?"

Erza followed his line of sight but then her expression turned alarmed as the lacrima flashed. "Get down!"

The warning proved to be well timed when the lacrima blew up only seconds later.

"What the heck was that?" Gray asked Erza.

"A timed bomb. from the looks of thing. I'd say that was triggered to go off when someone comes near it."

Kageyama leaned on the wall, sneering at them "That's Erigor-san, he's determined as the rest of us to make sure this plan works."

"Talk about relaxed, this could affect you too, you know! Why are you so desperate to get this plan underway?" Lucy wanted to know.

"You wouldn't understand." He scoffed. "You don't know what it's been like for us. Our rights were stolen by people who had it all but only cared about themselves. Well, now we're just going to make sure to get everything."

"That's quite the talk for people who are just stalling for time." Hope said coolly. "You can't get away with treating people's lives like dirt."

"Exactly, we've come too far to stop now." Natsu glared at Kageyama.

Hope concentrated his magic and began to scan the area again. Moments later, he spoke "There's a bunch of bombs scattered here and there..."

Happy groaned "They really are buying time! What do we do?"

Hope frowned in thought. ' _I've got one idea that might work. Can you...'_

" _Just leave it to me. It won't be a problem_." The phoenix's voice sounded very close to him.

'Thanks.' Hope conjured up a number of light spheres and they flew off moments later. The rest understood what happened when they saw a couple of glowing spheres nearby.

"I get it, we can't stop those things but you're making sure we can at least contain the damage." Gray said, impressed. 

Erza gave an approving nod "Nicely done, Hope."

"Yeah, let's get going!" Natsu said.

He was then startled by Happy's outcry. "That's it!"

"Happy?"

The cat flew up "Lucy, Virgo gave me her key before we left Duke Everlue's mansion and she wanted you to have it."

The blonde stared at him "Out of all the things to forget!"

"Sorry...oh yeah, can't we use the celestial world to get around faster like last time?"

"You guys just lucked out. It's not that simple!" Lucy responded. "But maybe we can use this to evade any other problems. Erigor won't expect any underground ambush. Gate of the Maiden, I open thee! Virgo!"

Everyone stared at the pretty pink haired maid that appeared then. Natsu, Lucy and Happy were dumb struck while their friends were curious.

"...Guys, are you sure that's the same Virgo you were telling us about?" Hope asked.

"She should be...I swear she looked like a vulcan before!" Natsu replied.

"Oh, you mean my old form?" Virgo transformed into a much larger, muscular and meaner looking woman which shocked them. "I'm a loyal spirit that changes form according to my master's wishes."

"What kind of person was her old master...?" Gray shook his head "...I think we all agree that your new form is better."

Virgo saw Lucy nod quickly to this and turned back "Then, Princess, would you like to form a contract?"

"'Princess?' Oh, never mind, we're in a hurry. I'll sort that out later. Just help us now!"

"Very well."

* * *

 

Virgo helped them get a fair distance away, stopping when Hope informed that they were close to where Erigor was. Gray looked annoyed when he realized that Natsu and Happy had taken off the moment they heard this, going in the direction they knew the Grim Reaper to be in.

Natsu smirked when he noted the familiar figure flying not too far away.

"Finally!"


	4. Chapter 4

"You never learn!" Erigor conjured up a burst of wind that pushed Natsu away again. He sneered "I'm surprised you caught up but even then, it makes no difference. You're out of your league, kid!"

"Don't bet on it!" Natsu retorted, standing. "Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!"

Erigor floated in different directions to avoid the fiery waves "Pathetic! You should have waited for your buddies after all. Maybe then you'd have some chance."

"That's some ego you got! Come on, Natsu, you can do it!" Happy called.

The dragon slayer grinned "You bet! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!"

Happy watched the battle continue, feeling frustrated as he watched his best friend's moves being stopped by Erigor's wind magic. No wonder the man was the guild's ace, he had the skills to match the title. He kept Natsu away easily as his wind magic seemed able to practically negate all Natsu's flames.

"Natsu, try something else!"

"Like what?" Natsu really didn't have any idea what he could do against this...

"I dunno, uh..."

Erigor sent another wind spell, forcing Natsu to dodge. "Don't tell me you thought you could relax once you were past the traps. That was just Rayule's idea and I wanted to see if it would really do anything. Even with all that, you're turning out to be a big disappointment, Salamander!"

Natsu growled "Oh, just wait. I'm only getting started!"

Happy almost groaned when the battle started to look the same way again, with Erigor dodging or countering Natsu's strikes. There had to be something to help turn this around...

"Emera baram!" Erigor cast, sending Natsu crashing to the ground.

Moments later, an idea came to the blue cat.

A grin appeared on his face for a moment before he continued "Natsu, don't you think Erigor's right?"

"What?"

Even Erigor looked surprised at this.

"I mean you're obviously a bad match against him. I can go and get the others to help..." Happy continued.

"Hey, what's with that attitude? I'm working it out, okay?!"

The cat looked unconvinced but it was his next words that would really change the situation "I don't know, I bet Gray can turn this guy into a popsicle in less than 5 minutes."

"What?!"

Hook, line and sinker. Happy inwardly smirked but continued innocently "Well, he can probably pull this off quickly. You're just wasting time."

"Are you saying he's better than me!?" Natsu demanded. "No way! I can take this guy out on my own."

"Really? How about you prove it?" Erigor taunted.

"The proof's comin' right up! Fire Dragon's Crushing Fang!"

"Idiot, Storm mail!"

The grim reaper thought everything was fine but he realized in alarm that Natsu's flames hadn't been put out like the other times. Grunting, Erigor increased his spell's power. "Give it up, nothing's changed. You're definitely not getting past me."

"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you." Happy said airily.

Once again he was proven correctly when Natsu went through storm mail and punched him hard. The strange part was, his flames weren't affected by Erigor's wind one bit.

The thing was, fire usually burns oxygen, which left Erigor defenseless. Happy knew that, and he also knew that the one way to get Natsu fired up to go all out now was to anger him which was why he said those things. Now with the flames powered up by his emotions, Natsu was stronger.

The teen proceeded to hit Erigor, even persevering when over half of his attacks were blocked off. Slowly, he was getting through his opponent's guard and Natsu knew it.

"See how you like this. Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!"

Happy cheered when Erigor was slammed to the ground and knocked out. "All right! I knew you could do it!"

Natsu gave him an unimpressed look "You were singing a different tune a minute ago."

"Ah, that's..."

Fortunately for him, he was saved from having to respond by their friends' arrival.

Gray blinked when he saw Erigor's unmoving form "What, you got him?"

"Nice, I knew you had it in you." Hope said.

Natsu grinned at him. "Thanks." He gave Happy a pointed look then. "See?"

"So what do we do now?" Lucy asked the group.

Erza looked at their surroundings "Well, I think we're very close to the guild master's hall. Maybe we should give them Lullaby and let them reseal it."

"Sounds good but...I don't see that thing anywhere, do you?"

Everyone started at this before looking around in alarm. They hadn't noticed but Lucy was right, the wooden flute they had seen earlier with Erigor was nowhere to be found.

Relying on Hope's sight spell once more, the group knew that Kageyama had whatever magic he had left to grab Lullaby while they were distracted and went to the guild master's hall. He had stolen a car from Oshibana town and followed the team, still determined to see this mission to the end.

* * *

 

When they arrived, it was to find Kageyama facing Makarov, clearly ready to play Lullaby. Just as they was about to go and stop him, they were stopped by Masters Goldmine and Bob, asking her to leave it to Makarov.

So they all watched as the fairy tail guildmaster proceeded to basically tell Kageyama not to overdo it, that he shouldn't force himself to go on now and that he had a chance to start over after receiving punishment for his actions. Makarov advised him not to go any further and just take a chance to go after that fresh start, knowing that things will be better for him if he did.

Kageyama looked more shaken at this, having not expect this reaction at all. Did the man know about his hesitation? How?

But before he could really react to any of this, Lullaby's floated out of his hand. The eyes started to glow before a voice said

"Honestly, is this all it takes to satisfy humans? That's just pathetic!"

"Wha...It can talk?!"

"Hmph," the voice scoffed. "Of course I can. Now watch, foolish humans as I show you what power you let slip through your fingers. I'll just start things off by devouring all your souls!"

A magic circle flashed and the flute transformed into a huge, demonic monster that immediately began rampaging. The people in the hall came out to see what was going on as a result.

"What the..."

"A demon?!"

"What's going on?"

"Perfect, you're all just setting yourself up for me."

"Then..." Erza, Natsu, Gray and Hope ran to block its path and the first continued "...we'll just have to stop you now."

Lullaby snarled and glowered at them.

"Re-equip!" Golden light surrounded Erza's body for a few moments, then revealing the redhead clad in a mostly silver armor with a headband that had metal wings attached at the side. "Heaven's Wheel Armor!"

Many of the observers had hearts in place of their eyes.

"That's Titania's Re-equip magic!"

"Yeah, and it's marvelous!"

"Try this, Circle Sword!" Erza called, striking Lullaby with numerous swords and make it howl in pain.

"And she's as strong as the rumors say too!" An observer exclaimed.

"Wow, no wonder she's an s-class mage. That's incredible..." Lucy agreed.

Lullaby then made to swipe at everyone with its hands only to be distracted by the ice lances and flame waves that hit its side.

Gray smirked "Where are you looking? We're not through with you yet!"

"No, but I'm through with you!" Lullaby snapped, firing a number of energy blasts from its mouth then.

"As if! Ice make: Shield!"

The nearby spectators stared in awe at the sight as the construct saved them.

"That's creation magic..."

"And so fast!"

"Damn, that kid's good!"

Natsu ran on Lullaby's back until he reached the knee, which was when he struck "Fire Dragon's Roar!"

"Did he just..."

"Yeah, that kid's got guts!"

"And clearly, the power to back it up!"

"Yup, that's Natsu!" Happy grinned when the dragon slayer hit Lullaby with a fire powered kick.

Lullaby roared in anger and pain and fired a big energy blast.

Hope held his pistols vertically and horizontally and they started to glow "Cross Drive!"

The bullets he fired then formed an x-shaped light blast that overtook Lullaby's blast and hit the demon in the face.

"How did he do that?!" A random observer wondered.

"He overpowered that huge blast like it was nothing!"

"That kid must have some great skill and power with magic..."

"Yeah he does. You go, Hope!" Happy beamed, glad at the praise their friends were receiving.

Lucy smiled "They're all amazing..."

"Lucy, why don't you help?" The cat asked.

She stiffened and gave a sheepish look "I don't have a spirit I can summon now...I'll probably get in the way."

"Lame..."

"Hey, don't be mean!"

Happy sniggered, it was so easy to get a rise out of her!

The two started as the ground shook and turned to Lullaby, realizing it was because its hand had struck the earth. The demon growled and did it again near Gray and Erza, forcing them to dodge.

"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!"

"Star Gladius!"

"Gah!" Lullaby roared. "Why you little...get over here!"

Hope and Natsu dodged its attack and responded with a Shining Torrent that stunned Lullaby before being followed by a Fire Dragon's Roar.

"It's almost like they timed it that well..." Lucy noted.

"Get the 'almost' out and you'll be right. Natsu and Hope are one of the best teams in the whole guild. That's sort of thing's a piece of cake for them." Happy informed.

The two ended up driving that point home for many of the observers then, hitting Lullaby with another brilliantly timed combination that sent it crashing to the ground.

Gray smirked "Nice work! Ice make: Ice Impact!"

Erza went next "Pentagram Sword!"

"How about this? Fire Dragon's Brilliant Flame!"

It was those strikes that felled Lullaby and ended the battle, making the observers cheer.

* * *

 

"Honestly, Gray, how long are you going to keep that habit? It's disgraceful." Erza commented as she went past the ice mage.

"Oh crap!" He yelped when he realized that he had stripped...again. "Sorry...where..."

Gray stopped when Hope gave him his clothes a moment later. "Thanks...nice to deal with someone who doesn't rub this in my face."

"No problem. I'm just resigned to the fact that this seems to be almost as chronic as Natsu's motion sickness.''  

"It's totally random though..." Natsu couldn't help but remark.

"You're telling me." Gray grew nervous suddenly.

Lucy and Happy exchanged smiles as she listened to the people praising Fairy tail. They were clearly impressed by the battle and it improved the guild's reputation in their eyes. The first then noticed Gray's expression.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm thinking we might have gone too far..." He admitted, looking around the forest, half of which had been totaled in the battle.

"How's that any different from the usual?" Natsu pointed out.

While his rival had a point, this definitely wasn't the time for it. "That's not what it's about, you idiot!"

"Yeah!" Makarov was thinking along similar lines. He should've known there was no way his brats wouldn't get in trouble. It was just too good to be true. "Look at this, what we supposed to do now?"

"Relax, Grandpa..." Hope began.

"How can I? After..." Makarov stopped when Hope gently steered him to turn left, blinking when the dust around the guild hall vanished, revealing it safe and sound. The reason was revealed when the dome formed by Aegis appeared then. "...Oh. Never mind."

This was one time he was glad to be proven wrong. The fact that the place was all right was a big plus. Things worked out after all, he mentally cheered.

Erza smiled and Gray looked similarly relieved. He could imagine how much trouble they would've been in if it hadn't been for that. "Have I mentioned that you're a total life saver?"

"Yeah, a bunch of times but thanks," Hope said with a laugh. "I thought it might be needed. Sorry, there wasn't any time to worry about any other place..."

"Ah, don't worry about it. We can always use this chance to do a little landscaping." Goldmine chuckled.

"Count on Hope to bail us out of trouble..." A relieved Happy muttered.

Bob laughed "Well, I see Makarov wasn't exaggerating about that part at the very least."

"Which reminds me...Hope, Makarov said you would know..." Goldmine dug in his pocket and took out what looked to be a rhombus shaped red glass shard. "...what this is."

The boy started at the sight, confirming his grandfather's suspicion. "So it is just like the other one, huh?"

Hope nodded and spread his palm. The shard lit up and immediately flew to him then. He revealed a silver necklace that was under his shirt, it had an empty round pendant with a star in the center, each point of the start attached to a part of the circle. There was a crystal at each joint of the star, totaling four.

Most of the pendant was silver but two of the crystals were blue. When Hope brought the red shard close, it seemingly merged with the pendant, making the circle part turn red.

"Whaddya know..." Goldmine trailed off.

"I've been trying to fix it." Hope explained. "I think the shards are scattered to many places because I've only one so far. Thank you for this."

"Heh, no problem. With how things are, I'd say you would've found it even if we hadn't."

Makarov nodded "Come on, you lot, time to make sure you get your reward."

"Yeah!" Lucy and Happy cheered while Natsu grinned.


	5. Chapter 5

"Heeh, that sounds like some mission."

"Trust me you don't know the half of it. But at least I got this!" Lucy took out Saggitarius' key with a smile. She, Natsu, Happy, Gray and Erza had returned from a mission in Galuna Island while Hope had been doing a job for the council and so they had taken time to catch up. "You were lucky to get away from the punishment."

Hope gave her a sympathetic look "Yeah, I guess Grandpa didn't take this well, huh?"

"That, is the understatement of the century." Lucy said with a sigh. "I honestly think it'd would have been better if you were there but it's clear you've got quite the load on your hand. No wonder you guys never made a team before with how you end up either helping around here, or with people on jobs or even the council. Why can't Laxus act like the big brother he's supposed to be and help?"

"Maybe because he's never done it before?" Gray said as he walked over with Happy flying behind him. "You know Hope's doing this because he wants to helps Gramps out. Look me in the eye and tell me you can see Laxus doing something as admirable as that."

"Point taken..." As if she could do that. She had seen the lightning mage before they left for Galuna Island and honestly, his attitude was really annoying. That was the one time she understood just why Natsu would attack one of his guildmates.

Happy landed on Hope's lap "Ah, who cares? Hope doesn't need him as long as he got us, right?"

The boy smiled and stroked his head, making the cat purr. "Yeah, that's good enough for me."

"You said Hope was the last person to join before me. When was that?" Lucy asked curiously.

Happy tilted his head as he thought it over "...Over 6 years ago now, I think. Master adopted him into the family right after that. He was actually a freelance mage so Master let him pick out jobs whenever he was in Magnolia. Hope's been to a lot of places and a bunch of guilds wanted him to join up, actually."

"Really? Well, I've seen you in action so I know you're skilled but you must have been pretty good back then too." Lucy noted, impressed.

Hope looked sheepish "Thanks, but I'm not really sure that's why..."

Gray shot him an amused grin "Yeah, but we know all about that. Hey, Lucy, ever hear of the White Paladin?"

"? Sure, I have. That famous traveler who helped so many people and..." She blinked when he cocked his head at Hope. Her eyes widened as she understood "...whoa, no way..."

"Yes way."

The White Paladin was a traveling mage who tended to help people in plenty of places he visited. Many people weren't sure of his origins, heck they didn't know much of anything about him. Some wizard magazines had picked up a number of his stories from the people who met him, but he remained elusive to them. With people singing his praise, he had become famous. It was known that he was a skilled and clever swordsman with powerful light magic.

"Wow, I've been meeting a bunch of famous people but you're the last person I expected. I always liked the stories about you." Lucy admitted.

"If you told me I'd be here years ago, I wouldn't have believed it." Hope responded. "I'm still not sure who gave me that name but it stuck. People keep building their expectations after listening to their story, so a lot are surprised when they see me."

"Yeah, but you just kept blowin' minds, kiddo." Gray ruffled his hair.

Hope laughed "That sounds like some job we missed though. Your teacher seems just as amazing as you said."

"Oh, she is. More than you know." Thanks to a few mishaps on their first job together, Gray ended up having to tell him some things about his training days with Ur and his fellow ex-pupil Lyon. It wasn't something he would've done normally but he was grateful for Hope's understanding nature, which made him easy to talk to. It actually helped to talk about this to someone and it was what lead them to figure out a way to effectively end the job too.

"You're still having no luck with the pendant, huh?" Happy queried.

"Yeah, the shard Grandpa and the others found was the first I've seen in years. I keep wondering what's going to happen when I find the rest of them..." Hope admitted. The item had been with him for so long now and he was so used to keeping it close. He remembered someone telling him it was important so he promised to always care for it. While he hadn't done such a good job of holding that promise, he still wanted to fix it and those shards were vital for that.

Hope just wished he could remember who the person he made the promise to was...

* * *

 

"You know, I'm still having trouble believing that those three went on a mission with such little damage coming out in the end." Droy admitted as he and Levy went to the request board with Natsu trailing after them. "Though it's probably thanks to Hope."

"What else is new?" Levy started searching through the jobs.

Natsu grabbed a request "You're making a big deal out of nothing."

"Have you see Master after you came back from that job? It wasn't nothing." Levy argued.

"Don't go there. I just remember that punishment..." The dragon slayer shuddered. Funny and fatherly he was but Makarov was also terrifying when crossed.

"Well, you guys were asking for it."

"He was overreacting! We did the job, just like I knew we could."

Levy shook her head "It's nice to see you believe in yourself and the others but it's never that simple. You know that."

"Yeah, but it doesn't make the whole thing any less of a pain..."

"I'm going to kill him..." Gray growled.

Lucy sighed "How did things turn out this way?"

"Ash brain just picked something that was good for him..."

Fed up with the complaints that had been going on for some time, Natsu turned to them. "Hey, I didn't ask you to come, snow fairy!"

"Maybe not, but Erza did!"

He blinked and put on a puzzled look "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious? We're a team now and we should be getting used to doing jobs together." The knight mage said firmly.

This time Natsu knew better than to argue or respond so he kept going.

They had just left the town of Linali located to the south of Magnolia. The client wanted them to find out the reason behind the drought in the area and do something about it, having suspicions that it was caused by magical means. The people of Linali couldn't do a thing because when they tried, they were attacked by some odd monsters they have never seen before and were too scared to try again. Some of them were positive that they had seen runes and a magic circle in the forest. This situation had been going for a while and the heat seemed to be getting worse.

The other problem here was that Natsu had picked this request out, forgetting that he was the only one who could take this situation well. He was the only one not fazed by the area, another thing was that they weren't any closer to figuring this out nor had they seen any of the monsters the client mentioned.

A few minutes ago, they had stopped to let Hope use his sight spell to search the surrounding area again. But it didn't look like he had found anything.

"It's a good thing we haven't seen the monsters but really, what's going on with this place?" Happy wondered.

Erza looked at Hope, seeing that his eye have turned blue again. "Did you find anything?"

He shook his head "I can't see anyone in that place and..." He stopped as a strong wave of dizziness crashed on him and before he quite knew it, Hope was swaying on his feet only to be caught by Erza.

"Are you all right?"

"Y-yeah, I'm just..." He stopped and cupped his forehead in his hand. Erza wasn't surprised, she had seen some people in Linali exhibiting similar exhaustion from the heat.

"Natsu, we're resting now!" Gray informed.

He agreed, mainly because he could see how tired his childhood friend was. Ignoring Hope's apologetic look, Natsu said "Let's go. I remember where those caves were."

* * *

 

"Sorry," Hope said as they settled in the nearest cave. "I'm..."

"That's okay," Erza assured. "You're just a little frail and it's fine. You've come a long way with that and we could always use the break ourselves."

"Yup, you just try and take it easy now. I'll tell when we're ready to keep going." Happy added.

The boy nodded, giving them a grateful smile before he lay against a boulder.

Gray poked his head out the cave with an annoyed look "What the heck's up with this place? With how they put the request, I thought we'd at least see some of the monsters or well...anything!"

"I know it's boring, snow fairy. Who needs you reminding us?" Natsu asked.

"That's not the point. Would you use that brain of yours for once? Then again, when was the last time you did?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know...that you're an idiot?"

"Why you..."

Erza's eye twitched and she went to deal with the two. Lucy rolled her eyes, already resigned to the fact that no matter what you do, there was just no stopping the fire and ice mages from fighting.

"I'm surprised that they actually haven't fought until now," Happy admitted, thinking along similar lines.

Lucy decided to ignore the scene and glanced at Hope with a concerned look. After she told her about their rescuing Macao and Ross along the way, Mira had informed her that Natsu and Happy weren't being mean when they tried to stop Hope from giving Lucy his coat. They were just concerned for him. The former model then revealed that Hope in fact had a frail constitution. After he had found some ways to help him adjust to things, with the aid of Makarov's ex-team member Porlyusica, he knew how to work things out to a pace that suited him. His friends understood that but they had made it a habit to look out for him. Lucy understood and thought it was sweet of them. She could see that their guild mates were appreciative of the boy's efforts and they tried not to pile too much on him in consideration. Plenty of them were protective of Hope as well. Fairy tail was starting to feel like more and more like a family.

* * *

 

"Jeez...not only is this lame, but now I've got a headache the size of the guild building because of you!" Natsu grumbled.

A while had passed since the afternoon and they had set off to continue the search again, but they were coming up empty handed.

"Me? You're the one who wouldn't back off!" Gray retorted.

"Guys, if you've got that much energy to spare then how about you help us look?" Hope walked over. "We're getting close to where the last monster sighting was. There should be at least a clue here."

"Fine!" The two responded, scowling at each other when they realized what the other said. Both were thankful it was Hope who caught them and not Erza, they would have been in serious pain if that was the case.

Lucy saw Happy fly over from her far right "Any luck?"

"No, it's totally empty. But you can totally tell there's been some mess here, those must be some powerful fire monsters."

Natsu blinked "Fire? Why would..."

He never got around to finishing the question because that was when Erza came back. She had a sword in hand and had jumped back to avoid a swipe from a large, translucent red creature that looked like a lizard. The odd thing was, it seemed like a giant red mass.

"What the heck is that thing?!"

Erza's eyes widened when she saw the creature raise its tail before going into a spin, everyone scrambled to dodge at once. The lizard came back to strike once more.

"Ice Make: Cannon!"

The creature was pushed back a good distance by the projectile, hissing angrily. Steam came forth from the spot it was hit then.

"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!" Natsu tackled that same spot but had to jump to avoid the lizard's counter then.

Erza re-equipped into her Morning Star Armor "Photon Slicer!"

"Maelstrom!" Hope fired two beams from his pistols, they shot up into the sky and moments later, numerous beams hit the lizard.

With a key in hand, Lucy frowned in thought as she decided to try something "Gray, hit that thing hard! It looks like it hates ice."

"Huh, let's try then. Ice Make: Lance!"

It worked, pushing the lizard back again.

"I don't have ice element armor but this might work. Re-equip, Sea Empress Armor!" In a flash, Erza got a new blue and green armor out. She slashed with her sword, raising a big wave that washed the enemy away.

When the wave settled, the lizard was gone.

"What's going on?" Happy wondered. "Did that thing run?"

"Nope..." Natsu frowned in concentration. "...I can't smell any trace of its scent. Erza, where did it come from?"

"I'm not sure." The redhead admitted, looking at the cave behind her then. "But it just emerged when I reached this cave..."

Upon hearing that, Hope went inside to take a look. Looking around, it seemed normal, even if relatively small opposed to what the outside would make one think. He noticed a violet sphere painted to his left. There were some letters around that glowed every few moments.

Happy and Erza followed him moments later. "Any luck?" The first prompted.

"...I think so." He said, getting one of his pistols out. "You're going to want to step back."

"Why?" They watched him access his personal dimension for a bit before he took out a blue bullet and stepped back as he fired.

Moments later, they found out just why. Not only was the bullet flashy, but it was really loud. It blinded them for a few seconds. When they could see again, they were surprised to see a hidden staircase.

"Hey, guys!" The others ran in and Natsu continued. "What was...hey, what's that doing here?"

"Why don't we go find out?" Hope prompted.

* * *

 

Deep beyond that same staircase were a group of men gathered in a room, all seeming tense and wound up. Even worried about something as they worked.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know but we have to think of anything!"

"And fast..."

"It's coming!"

At this, a roar sounded...

"What's with this place?" Natsu frowned. It looked like someone had built a home of sorts underground, they'd seen plenty of rooms but they were all empty. That wasn't the strangest part, though..."I could have sworn I heard something roar just now..."

"You're imagining it, there's no one here..." Gray said with a dismissing wave of his hand. "...but just to make sure I understand, this means someone made that rocky wall and got that shield spell Hope destroyed to cover something up maybe?"

"It sure looks that way. I remember seeing that symbol in a book, it's supposed to be perfect for hiding things. Even if we had destroyed part of the cave, as long as that symbol was intact we wouldn't have been able to tell if anything was off." Lucy explained.

"That's a lot of effort then..." Happy blinked, seeing something glow at the end of the corridor. "...Hey, do you guys see that?"

They did, the glow seemed to be coming from a room ahead...

* * *

 

A massive creature that looked a little similar to the lizard but with wings roared at the men staring at it fearfully. All their attempts to hide or keep it away failed and they didn't know what to do.

The creature charged at them again, only to be hit on the head by a pair of glowing arrows. Everyone looked around to see Team Natsu standing at the door next to the centaur zodiac spirit Saggitarius.

"Is that a dragon?!" Happy gaped.

"It looks like that lizard from before. Seems we're about to find the reason behind all the trouble." Erza remarked, glancing at the men. "What're you all waiting for? Get out of here, we'll handle this!"

The men were too confused and scared to obey the order but then the red dragon roared again and opened its mouth. Hope cast Aegis to stop in its tracks.

"Eat this. Ice Make: Cannon!" Gray smirked when the icy blast forced the creature back, making it hiss angrily.

"Saggitarius!" Lucy called.

"Right!" The spirit fired more arrows that hit the dragon's back, forcing it back. Lucy looked back at the men. "What're you waiting for? Go!"

Natsu and Erza charged then. The first jumped "Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!"

"Re-equip, Purgatory Armor!" Erza's armor changed once more as she delivered a powerful series of slashes that ended with a dark star shaped wave that sent the dragon crashing into the wall.

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Happy cheered.

The observers were in shock. "They're actually beating it?!" "Amazing..." "Who are they?"

"Let's keep it going." Lucy sent Saggitarius back and grabbed another key. "Taurus! Give it all you got!"

"Gladly!" The bull struck the dragon's back then. The creature reared back and was about to his the spirit with its tail, only for it to be destroyed by a laser that was followed by a shining blast similar to that lead them here. Taurus looked back at Hope "Thanks, kid!"

"No problem. Spiral Fang!" Hope proceeded to change his weapons to sword form before slashing the dragon chest repeatedly, gathering magic in his weapons. Then he jumped sideways to dodge the dragon's bite and using its head as a stepping stone to slash one of the wings and changing one of the weapons back to a pistol to blast the other one. He stepped back in time for Natsu to charge.

"Nice, Hope! Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" Natsu's strike took care of the other wing before he punched the dragon's back to make sure it stayed grounded. "Gray!"

The ice mage was already behind them "Yeah! Ice Make: Ice Impact!"

Erza slashed the dragon once more and that along, with Natsu's Dragon Roar, was enough to fell it.

"All right!"

* * *

 

"This might be the only time where your destructive habits were handy." Lucy deadpanned. "Of course, this is the almost the one time where it doesn't mean a thing."

"Heh, yeah, I guess so. We know the odds of something like this turning out again." Gray mused.

"Yeah, slim to none."

Through her rather fierce and downright scary interrogation, Erza learned that the group of people dealing with the dragon were actually researchers. This was a place they made to ensure that their discoveries would stay secret until they say otherwise. It turned out that this all happened because they were trying to study a fire crystal they had come across. Fire crystals could be used in some great energy resources so they wanted to know how to make one and the dragon and the lizard emerged in a result of their tampering. The monsters in their job request were also similar energy masses they had barely managed to handle.

"So the crystal went out of control causing all that heat." One of them said at last while the rest finished their work to get the crystal's power back under control.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused innocents?" Erza glared.

Like any other sensible people, they couldn't help but quiver "We're sorry!"

"I feel bad for them." Happy said.

"I don't, they shouldn't have even gone this far. I mean setting up that seal and getting us through all this mess? We better be done here." Gray saw Natsu lying on the floor. "What's with you?"

"He says he's starving." Happy supplied.

"Oh, come on. We'll just look for something on our way back."

"But that takes way too long!" Natsu argued.

Gray was about to retort when they saw Hope walking over "Hey, Natsu. Try this." He gave the dragon slayer what looked like a piece of red rock.

Confused but seeing no reason to argue, Natsu did so. The rest looked surprised.

"Hope, what did you give him a piece of the fire crystal for? That could be dangerous." Lucy demanded.

"Why did you even take it?" Gray asked Natsu.

Erza agreed "Really, I thought you knew better."

"Whooa!" Natsu let out.

"See?"

"No, I mean whoa, as in this stuff is awesome! I feel great!"

At the confused looks that came his way, Hope explained "Fire crystals are said to be condensed flame and heat energy in its purest form so I thought it could help."

"Well, it worked great." After giving him a grateful look, Natsu turned to the others. "You guys should seriously know better by now. There's no way Hope would give any of us something dangerous."

The three couldn't deny that the statement was completely true so what else could they say besides "We're sorry."

Happy smiled a bit, mentally agreeing with Natsu as he watched the scene "Natsu's actually scolding them. Never thought I'd see the day."


	6. Chapter 6

"Well, well, looks like we've got some lost fairies here."

Gray scowled at the approaching punks surrounding them, sensing trouble. Natsu's eyes narrowed beside him, clenching a fist.

"Don't think we're going to let you leave our turf easily." one of them sneered.

"You idiots don't know who you're messing with." Natsu growled before looking back at their friends. "Just hang back, we got this."

Happy nodded "Okay..."

The following fight was done in minutes. The entire team was worn out but that wasn't stopping Natsu and Gray, who for once were in no mood for a fight and just planned to get back to their guild. While this may be a surprise to any who knew them, it wouldn't be if they knew what they had dealt with recently.

* * *

 

Mira's face lit up when she saw them walk in "There you are! Is everything okay? We were getting worried."

"Yeah, let's just say things got messy..." Happy landed on the table.

They had found a letter requesting help to a town near Linali on their way home and after some rest, decided to see what it was about. In the process, they ran into an injured man named Logan Hunter and helped him. The man admitted that he hadn't known about the letter but he had been on his way to get their town some help. He explained that their town was being oppressed by a powerful dark mage who was after a rare mineral from their mines that can be used to make various things. Zoldeo, the dark mage from the Balam Alliance, had also extorted the people with taxes and punished them if they failed to comply with his orders. Their town had skilled fighters but none of them stood a chance against Zoldeo. After their attempts at resisting, the man had gotten smart and decided to get some people to monitor them and make sure that they didn't get help. It didn't always work but whatever help they could get, didn't work.

Mira, Makarov and Levy stared with surprise clear on their faces at the explanation. The last said "So what happened?"

"We were already there, you know? We weren't going to just leave things that way." Gray stated. "I don't know where he got those guards but they were a piece of cake. That bastard was the problem."

"He was possessing a celestial spirit, a zodiac to be precise." Erza took over. "But part of the problem was that his subordination magic weakened us, and he took complete advantage of that."

"Then what did you do?" Mira asked, wide-eyed, not noticing that a good number of their friends had stopped to listen.

But Makarov knew. He gave Hope a questioning look. The boy must've guessed what had in mind because he nodded. "So you overused Endymion's power again. We've been through this."

Endymion was the name of the phoenix whose soul had been infused with Hope's magical core years ago. This made him stronger and able to call on his powers when necessary. He and the bird had been connected through their souls for nearly as long.

"I know, sorry." The weariness in his tone was clear for all to hear but Hope continued. "But there wasn't any other way. When he found out about us, Zoldeo started planning to kill everyone in town. Things were so bad then that some of them were dying anyway. With some of the things the people told us, we dragged him out of the town and to a trap. The minerals in that cave were good for making magic tools and I guess a lot of them had celestial energy because they reacted to Zoldeo."

"Then Capricorn must have made use of it, because he started fighting Zoldeo for control." Lucy added. "So we trapped him in that room and Natsu made sure Hope could nail him with one of those bullets that stop use of magic for a while."

"And we hammered him like mad." Natsu informed. "It was just like with the vulcans, we had to force him out of Capricorn. He was a pain for sure. Though to be honest...I don't know if you can call that a win."

"Yeah...after the plan worked, he showed up in his real form, looking all tired and...well, he just vanished." Lucy finished awkwardly.

"I can imagine. That kind of magic is definitely forbidden, there's always a price to pay when you commit such taboo acts." Makarov nodded. "Still, now we know what took you so long."

"Yeah, we were just getting a break but Erza thought it was better if we come back here as soon as possible and make sure not to freak you all out." Gray explained.

"Sure sounds like it was a mess. You guys handled it nicely." Levy praised with Makarov nodding next to her.

"Thanks."

"I think we all want some rest after this though." Lucy added with a sigh.

Mira smiled at her "You earned it. I'm not Porlyusica but I can help with some first aid."

"That sounds very nice. Thank you, Mira." Erza smiled, standing.

* * *

 

Natsu groaned as Mira wrapped bandages around his torso "This is the first time I really appreciate Hope fixing us up..."

"Well, I'll try to go gently but it can't be helped." Both looked at Hope and found him sleeping one of the beds.

"Yeah, I know. Using Endymion's power like that really exhausts him."

"Hey, Happy, I think you said that before...what did you mean?" Lucy tilted her head a little.

"Hope can keep Endymion's form up for about 12 minutes. He can extend the limit depending on the magic he uses but that's normally it."

"Whoa, 12 minutes?!" Lucy stared, realizing how serious this was since Hope had definitely kept it up pleny longer than that.

"Natsu, didn't you say that injury was almost healed?" Happy asked.

"Yeah, that was before Erza punched me there on the train to knock me out."

Mira sighed "Of course this is still going. Why am I not surprised?"

Erza rolled her eyes "I've been wondering, Endymion. Do you have any idea what those shards are supposed to be?"

'I'm afraid not.' The phoenix spoke at last. 'They do seem to have quite the power around them.'

"How come you're awfully quiet?" Happy asked.

'I thought it was right to give anyone enough time to get used to my presence before acting like everything was normal.'

Lucy blinked when she realized that meant her and shook her head. The telepathy would take getting used to but she wasn't complaining "I'm good. Don't hold back on my account."

She started recalling the first time she lay eyes on the phoenix...

* * *

 

_It was right in the middle of the battle, they were facing a good number of the grunts when Zoldeo showed up again. He was angry when he saw how badly his side he failed._

_"Why you damn brats! Don't push your luck!"_

_With that, he started fighting them again. Cancer had tried to stop him but Lucy was forced to send him back when he was overpowered. What really threw her off was the little talk they had._

_"So what's with the name, huh, 'Zoldeo?'" Cancer sneered. "What do you think you're doing, ebi?"_

_Zoldeo simply smirked "I don't owe you any explanation. You don't stand a chance against me."_

_He proceeded to strike the crab down. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself up "Lucy, that's no dark mage, ebi. He's the Zodiac Capricorn."_

_"What?!"_

_Happy's eyes widened "He's one of you? But spirits can't stay on this world for that long right?"_

_"Not for days on end, usually...," he grunted. "...Something's really wrong though. I think he's..."_

_"You're done!" Zoldeo charged, fed up with the talk._

_"Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!"_

_Natsu landed in front of Cancer, scowling when he saw that it missed. Lucy took the opportunity to send her spirit back to recover._

_Zoldeo's eyes narrowed "It's just like I thought. You're Layla's daughter."_

_She stared at him "You knew my mother?"_

_He smirked "Yeah, it's hard not to tell when you look so much like her. But enough talk..."_

_He proceeded to throw a flash bomb that blinded the group of four. They could tell he was getting another attack ready and struggled to find a way out of this._

* * *

 

And fill her in they did. Apparently over 8 years ago, Hope had been captured by a dark guild and used in an experiment to revive Endymion, whose soul was sealed in a tablet. Out of all the people they worked with, only Hope survived. The experiment partially worked, but the resulting power was so much for them to control and Endymion used it to flee the scene. It was around that time that Igneel found them.

She couldn't imagine how terrible of an experience that was. Endymion wasn't exactly trusting and was put off by how their guildmates reacted when the truth came out, which was why he'd planned to avoid explaining this again for the time being. Lucy had decided to make sure that he wouldn't have anything to worry about there.

It was then that Makarov entered the infirmary "Oh, everything all right?"

"Yeah, what do you have there?" Happy pointed at the paper in his hand.

"That Logan fellow you mentioned sent a letter. He explained mostly everything you told me with some details. He says they're very grateful to you all and that he'll be sure to send the reward as soon as they get the town back on its feet."

"He's still on that? Boy, that guy's stubborn." Gray recalled the celebration after Zoldeo and his henchmen were taken care of. Logan had been feeling guilty about not being able to reward them, despite the team's reassurance that it was fine. They weren't expecting much of anything else with how Zoldeo bled everyone dry.

"Well, you did the right thing by me, all of you. Good job." Makarov said, earning smiles from them.

"Thanks!"


	7. Chapter 7

"Man, that guy ticks me off..." Elfman grumbled as Laxus left.

Cana scoffed "Try he ticks us all off, big guy. I'll never know how Hope puts up with him."

"No kidding, but if we're talking oddities, there's one between Hope and this guy too." Gray jerked a finger at Natsu.

"Like what?" He demanded.

"Like how you get along so well. It's like day and night."

"Well, opposites do attract. It's a good thing if you asks me." Erza remarked, with Lucy nodding.

"Yeah, but it was weird at first..." Happy put in his piece. Most of them were used to it by now but there was no denying that it was surprising to see when they got to know Hope.

Natsu gave him a flat look before saying "Well, it's true we didn't exactly get along at first. I thought Hope was okay but he was a bit of a crybaby and that really got on my nerves."

"Really?" Gray said with renewed interest. He'd always wondered about them. Natsu had been thrilled when Hope joined the guild and he had no trouble showing him the ropes. He had told them a bunch of times about the boy before they met him. Apparently, Hope was an excellent teacher with all the things he taught Natsu in the short while they stayed together. That was another reason Gray had been particularly curious to meet him, to see if he was as Natsu claimed, he almost was. But something was very different and Natsu knew it too. Hope had grown a little...cold. Okay, maybe that wasn't the right word but the point was that he put his guard up plenty of times. He still was kind and polite, it was almost as if he kept himself at a distance at times.

They had tried to work on that with Makarov warning them to take it slowly because that kind of wariness could only come after being deeply hurt in the past. Gray began to understand after finding out about and getting to know Endymion. He figured it was partly because he came to learn that caution from the phoenix.

Regardless, they had come to fit in well and made many friends. Gray knew that many of them found the past to be a difficult subject so he never tried to bring it up with either Hope or Endymion. Still, he would be lying if he said their past didn't get him curious.

Hope had only told them about his life around the time a little before and plenty after he became known as the White Paladin. He and Endymion were clearly withholding a lot of information. Only Natsu, Igneel (if Natsu's guess was right), Gildarts, Lisanna, Makarov and oddly enough in Gray's opinion, Laxus, seemed privy to that knowledge.

"Igneel said to give him a chance because Hope really had a lot of reasons to cry back then. He was right." The dragon slayer continued. "Next thing I know, the kid I pegged for a wimp is saving my life."

"Are we talking about the same person here?" Lucy tilted her head. "It just seems hard to imagine Hope as a wimp."

"Yeah, it's just not right." Gray added.

Erza crossed her arms"I think Natsu's saying he understands that too. He just couldn't see it at first."

"Exactly." Natsu confirmed.

"Come to think of it, Laxus mentioned something about this before? About what happened to Hope before joining the guild..." Erza trailed off when she saw Natsu's frown. Something about the expression tipped her off. "...You're not going to tell us, are you?"

"Nope, I promised not to." He said with a final tone.

Cana decided to change the subject "I thought it was weird when those two believed your story about Igneel but I didn't think they actually got to meet him."

"You guys never asked."

"Yeah, guess not. So how come you looked pissed off when you said Igneel would be pissed off if he found out about your big mistake?"

Natsu blinked, vaguely recalling saying something of the like "You remember that?"

"A little, I thought it was weird." Cana admitted.

"It wasn't really...me and Igneel did mess up back then..." He walked away and only a few of the listeners heard him mutter. "We never should've let them go."

* * *

 

A few days later...

The atmosphere around the guild was heavy for the Fairy Tail HQ had been attacked in the middle of the night pillars and practically wrecked by great iron pillars. The guild members were all in the basement, with some who recently arrived trying to find the truth behind this.

"Phantom Lord?"

Natsu scowled at the mention of the guild presumed by many to be their rivals. Gray was no less displeased. "If you knew, why aren't you doing anything?"

"There's no point. It was just a cowardly strike. It's not worth." Makarov said calmly.

"Gramps, this isn't time to drink!" Natsu exclaimed.

"Hah, guess not. It's time for punishment." He smacked the fire and ice mages before spanking Lucy.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" She demanded at once.

Mira pouted "Master, behave yourself!"

"Anyway, the point is no one got hurt so it's fine. We'll just be operating here until..." Makarov stopped, noticing Hope approaching. "Oh, Hope, good timing. Think you can restore the guild hall?"

"I-I can try. I don't know how well that would work though...I'm still working on memoria spells so I'm not sure about pulling it off." He added apologetically.

Makarov knew one of the reasons behind his hesitation had to do with him forgetting plenty of what he learned about memoria magic earlier. "That's just fine. It can't be helped You don't give yourself enough credit."

'Agreed. It would help if we had a lacrima charged with magic, Master.' Endymion remarked.

"Consider it done. We'll get started once I have them ready." He left.

"Hope, don't tell me you agree with this? It's stupid!" Natsu snapped.

"Well, it really isn't up for us to decide."

"That's true. Remember that conflict between the guilds is forbidden." Erza warned.

* * *

 

Lucy had just arrived hoe to find the rest of Team Natsu lounging around. Erza was looking around the room curiously, Gray lay on the couch in his underwear and Natsu and Happy were on the bed.

"Welcome home." The last two greeted.

Her jaw dropped comically at the sight "What're you all doing here?!"

Gray cocked his head, looking behind her "Come on, guys, you're just making this harder than it has to be."

Lucy blinked and turned around, seeing Hope standing nearby.

"Well...it didn't seem right." The boy offered.

'I know why we're all here but you're the ones making this situation troublesome.' Endymion stated.

It occurred to Lucy that they had to refuse barge in when she wasn't around. Making a mental note to thank them later, she spoke "Nice to see some people with manners around. Come on in."

She proceeded to smack Happy for scratching the wall "Don't do that!"

"You have a really nice place but why didn't you come to the dorm?" Erza asked, referring to the girls' dormitory, Fairy Hills.

"It's way too expensive, I barely get the rent ready here." She answered, having calmed down a little. "Anyway, you mentioned something about the reason you're all here, right, Endymion?"

'Oh, right. Master advised everyone to stick together in case Phantom attacked so everyone's pairing up.'

Lucy hid a shudder "You think they'll be coming after us next?"

'Who can say? You can never be too careful.' The phoenix returned.

"True, true..." Well, it made sense and she felt better with them all here so she decided to let this slide.

Happy frowned "I forgot the fish. Hope, can you make me something?"

"I don't mind but..."

"Oh, it's all right if you use the kitchen." Lucy said, preceding the question she knew was coming.

"Yay!" Happy cheered, landing on Hope's head as the teen left with Natsu calling for him to get food for everyone.

"Gotta say, I didn't know he can cook..." Lucy mused.

"Oh, you're in for a treat." Erza promised.

* * *

 

"That was good!"

"Mmhm, it definitely beats a lot of the stuff I've eaten!"

"You just keep getting better, Hope!"

The boy smiled gratefully at the praise. Lucy leaned against her bed post "It feels like I can actually relax now..."

"Yeah, guess its time to get to bed." Happy stood.

"There's one problem, your hygiene," Erza announced.

Natsu frowned "But I don't want to take a bath now..."

"I already in bed, Erza," Gray mumbled.

She smiled "Then why don't we take a bath together like we used to?"

Hope and Lucy shared bewildered glances, wondering if they heard that right. It was one thing for them to do that as kids but Erza was acting like it was completely normal now too.

"What kind of relationship do you three have?" The latter demanded. 

"That's easy, they're the strongest team!" Happy chirped.

"More like the strangest team!"

'Seems those times weren't half as nice as Erza imagines them to be.' Endymion remarked.

"Not in the slightest." Natsu responded. 

Erza looked at him "Did you say something?"

"No..."

* * *

 

But restful as that night was, Fairy Tail was in for quite a shock... 

Team Natsu came across a crowd in Magnolia's park. Oddly the people seemed to be evading them and mutter among themselves...

"What's going on?" Happy froze when his eyes fell on the great tree before them.

Levy, Jet and Droy were crucified there for all to see. All were unconscious and beaten badly, no one missed how Phantom's mark was on Levy's stomach.

"Levy-chan!"

"Jet! Droy!"

"No way!"

"What happened here?"

Hope wasted no more time, working on getting the three down before casting Athena's veil. He didn't know if what everyone said about the spell being surprisingly much more effective with him was true. If it was, he was glad for it meant he could help all them all the more now.

A few minutes later, he raised his head at the sound of footsteps, seeing Makarov. "Grandpa..."

"Destroying the guild hall...that I can put up with, but seeing my children hurt?" The staff in his hand shattered. "THIS MEANS WAR!"

* * *

 

The members of Phantom Lord were all pleased with the attack on Fairy Tail. Many of them got a kick out imagining their reactions, laughing as they imagined the fairies running with their tails between their legs. Little did they know that this was about to cost them dearly.

Minutes later, their door was kicked down and they were shocked to that...

"Fairy Tail's here!"

* * *

 

After that it was pretty much pandemonium.

A huge battle broke out between the sides. Spells were being fired, weapons clashed and destroyed. Natsu took the lead "Bring it!" He had no problem blowing through the mages unlucky enough to get in his way.

One of his attackers took a fiery punch that sent him into a wall. Another enemy tried to sneak up on him only to be tackled by a streak of light that then landed behind the dragon slayer to reveal Hope.

"Why you..." The phantom mage sen out at an energy blast at Hope in anger only for it to be frozen in place by a silver aura and thrown back to sender.

The two friends shared a nod before taking down an attacker from each side and splitting up again.

Hope created four wings of pure light to soar quickly around their enemies. He didn't like this but Phantom had hurt Team Shadow Gear and they wouldn't get away with it. He was going to give everything he had to protect Fairy Tail and his family.

With his speed, it almost seemed like Hope was a blur. None of the attacks aimed at him hit. He sent a silver magic sphere that made a group of enemies freeze where they stood. Elfman quickly dispatched with some well timed blows with his beast arm.

Loke touched his magic "Ring Magic: Twister!" A mighty twister blew his attackers away.

Erza re-equipped into the Knight armor before going to take down every enemy in her path.

All in all, it was looking up for Fairy tail.

"Get him!"

Happy flew up to avoid the two mages coming his way, making them hit each other. He whipped out a frying pan and smacked them both on the head, knocking them out.

He gave the dumbfounded observers a smug look "Don't underestimate me. I'm a Fairy Tail mage too!"

Natsu saw a shadow jump to a nearby pillar and looked up to see a young man with messy black hair, red eyes and a wide grin.

"You finally made it, Salamander."

"Who the hell are you?'' 

He just grinned and jumped "Iron Dragon's club!" His arm transformed into a long steel pipe which he aimed to attack Natsu but missed as the latter moved away.

"What the...wait, you're a dragon slayer?" He asked, noting the technique's name.

"Yeah, Phantom's Dragon Slayer, Gajeel Redfox," At that, Natsu hurried to dodge another attack. Why did those pillars look familiar?

He and Gajeel clashed with fists of fire and iron before jumping back. Gajeel's grin widened "Not bad, you might be worth my time after all."

"Say what?!" Who did this guy think he was?

* * *

 

Hope looked at the mages facing him and prepared his dual pistols. He fired two bullets of light magic which morphed into a golden bird that threw them down. He followed up with Maelstrom, taking advantage of its ran to keep the enemies away and clear out a crowd at the same time.

He cast Luminous Tornado in time to fend a few wind spells coming his way off, throwing the casters off balance as he proceeded to take them down.

"Wait a sec, the weapon...the skill with light magic." One of them started. "That kid's the White Paladin!"

"What?!" "No way!"

"Oh, it's just a coincidence. He can't be in Fairy Tail of all places, you idiots. Like hell a runt like him can do all the stuff in the stories." Another called. "Now quit gawking and get him!"

"Yeah!"

Ignoring the talk, having heard similar things in the past. Hope side stepped the first's attack and knocked the wind out of him by striking his gut before blasting him away. Despite the group running to strike him down, he remained calm, knowing just what was needed to be done.

* * *

 

Makarov continued to run to the second floor, none of the mages in his path had stayed for long. He didn't recall feeling so furious in a long time. Jose was NOT getting away with this.

He went to the first door he found and found a great all beyond it. Sitting on its only chair was a dark haired man sporting a wicked smile. This was Jose Porla, another of the Wizard Saints who was also Phantom Lord's guild master.

"It's been a while, Makarov." 

* * *

 

Hope glanced at the enemies he had just taken down before looking up with a frown. He used the sight spell as he and Endymion scanned the area. Something was off...

Gettng an idea, he looked at the second floor. Makarov attempted to punch Jose with an enlarged first only for it to go through him and into the wall. That only meant...

"A projection? You're a coward!"

"I'd rather avoid a fight between saints you know. Too troublesome for my tastes. I did get what I want so there's no reason to be here," Jose stated.

Makarov raised an eye, seeing that smug expression told him something was very wrong. He turned around in time to see a towering figure of a man wearing a blindfold and mostly green clothes behind him. He was reaching for Fairy Tail's guild master with a wide grin.

This was the last of the Element Four, Aria.

The next second the man was struck by two beams of light coming from his far right, making him howl in pain.

"What it this?" Jose demanded, the three men followed the attacks to the source and found Hope standing at the hall's entrance with his pistols at the ready.

"So, it was true. You weren't even here from the beginning."

Jose raised an eye. Could the boy see through his projection? "Interesting, I didn't think Makarov had someone like you in his guild. Well, like I told him, I have no reason to waste my time here." He vanished.

"I don't know how you did that, brat. But I'll make sure you pay," Aria grabbed Hope's arm before he could react. Realizing what was wrong, he froze the man and jumped back.

"Careful, Grandpa. It looks like he knows how to steal magic power." He warned.

"Oh, no worries. He won't get more shots at it again." Makarov assured.

* * *

 

Makarov had no problems dealing with Aria but Fairy Tail was forced to leave the building just after that due to one of their enemies setting a trap that triggered the castle's collapse.

"Come on, we gotta hurry!"

"Legs don't fail me now!"

Natsu ignored most of the people around him as he and Happy kept looking for the person they had in mind. He saw Happy flying down and immediately followed him.

"Hope!" Startled, the boy looked up at Happy's voice. "We need your help!"

Hope didn't miss the urgency in his tone but decided to put any questions aside "With what?"

* * *

 

Lucy looked at the cowed form of Master Jose and turned to leave (He was in that state since she kicked him where the sun didn't shine). She had stayed in Magnolia to take care of Team Shadow Gear but was kidnapped and taken to a tower by Sol and Juvia, two members of the Element 4. Jose had made it clear that they were actually after her.

A shudder passed through her as she remembered just why that was. She mentally shook herself, no there was no time to think about it. She had to get out of here!

"And where are you going?" Jose's voice came as she reached a dead end. "No one's going to save you. You're going to pay dearly for doing this to me!"

She glared defiantly back before turning to the window behind her and jumping, to the man's shock. Lucy did have a reason though, she prayed it would pay off.

Fortunately as she discovered soon, it did.

"Lucy!"

Natsu had arrived just in time to catch her. Hope and Happy made it moments later, both just as glad to see her.

"You guys...how did..."

Happy grinned, having overheard one of Phantom's members mentioning Lucy's predicament, he knew they had to act fast and so quickly warned the others.

"We got a brilliant team here, that's how. You all right?" He asked while Hope untied her.

She didn't answer, making Natsu eye her closely "Lucy?"

'What's wrong?' Endymion asked.

"I can't believe you all came..."

"What're you talking about? Of course we would," Natsu frowned.

"Yeah, Lucy, you know that." Hope added, watching her with concern like the rest of their friends. "What happened?"

It was then that the four realized that the celestial mage was crying. Natsu blinked "Hey, what's the matter?"

"I'm sorry..." She said quietly. "...this is all my fault. They attacked us because I left..." Natsu shared a puzzled look with his teammates, none of them had the heart to ask what that meant so they let her finish. "...They're saying I have to go back but I don't want to." She looked at them with tear filled brown eyes. "I really like being with everyone in Fairy Tail so I want to stay."

"Well, of course you can stay then. It's simple!" Natsu stated.

"Aye Sir! You're one of us, right, guys?" Happy patted her knee.

'Of course, she's definitely welcome.' Endymion replied.

Hope nodded, smiling at the girl as he extended a hand to her "Come on, let's go back, okay?"


	8. Chapter 8

"So, Lucy's actually from that rich Heartfilia family? Who knew..." Jet said when Levy finished telling her teammates and Cana everything.

"I don't get it. Her old man wants her back so he did this? What gives?" Cana asked.

Levy frowned, she could tell how guilty Lucy felt about the situation. It wasn't her fault though. She liked Lucy and wanted to help her out somehow. Her father, besides for being the entire cause of the situation, was clearly not someone she wanted to talk about. Levy wondered what went down between them but she didn't have the heart to ask the blonde.

"She didn't tell me either...I don't think it matter though. We can't let people like Phantom Lord take Lu-chan."

"Good point, we'll really knock their socks off next time." Jet grinned.

She smiled "Yeah!"

* * *

 

"I'm surprised you all want to talk to me after this mess." Lucy admitted.

Natsu fell in step with her. "Would you relax? No one blames you for the attack. We don't know the whole story but you're still our friend so you can stay as long as you want to.'' 

"Exactly, we could never let you go with people like that." Erza added, Hope nodded in agreement to both their statements, smiling at her.

"We'd still kick their butts anyday of the week so if they wanna try something again, I say bring it." Gray smirked.

Lucy gave them a grateful smile "Thanks a lot." It had to be about the fifth time she thanked them already. Deciding to get to the subject at hand, she said "So, what did you want to talk about, Hope?"

* * *

 

"Gate of the Goat, I open thee! Capricorn!'' 

Out of the portal emerged a humanoid goat like spirit dressed in a tuxedo, with sunglasses covering his eyes.

"Man, those spirits come in a whole lot of forms..." Happy said, thinking about the spirits he saw so far. "Say, Lucy, do you have any fish spirits?"

"You mean besides Aquarius?"

"...Never mind."

"You sure lost interest fast." Gray said.

"She scares me." The cat admitted and the ice mage found that he couldn't blame him one bit.

"So you're the real spirit, huh?" Natsu asked, looking over Capricorn with interest.

"Indeed, I never had the chance to thank you for saving me."

"You're welcome. It's good to see you've recovered." Hope responded.

Capricorn then took a moment to look at his surroundings, they were now near the outskirts of Magnolia and entering the forest. "It's very nice to meet Lucy-sama's guildmates."

"Likewise," Erza nodded respectfully. "You certainly seem reliable."

"Say, Capricorn, Hope wanted to ask if you'd spar with him. Is that all right with you?" asked Lucy.

"Certainly."

"You want to train with him?" Natsu asked, making sure he heard right.

Hope nodded "It's just an idea I had, it would certainly be different. Thanks in advance, Capricorn!"

"You're very welcome, where should we do this?"

* * *

 

Erza thought that Hope had the right idea to train especially now, there was always room for improvement. And if their friend with his frail body was still working hard to improve himself than why shouldn't they?

She wasn't sure why no one really responded to those thoughts when she voiced them. Well, she'd make sure they were motivated when the time came.

Actually, they were just trying to imagine what sort of training she would consider enough for this. Needless to say, with Erza's high standards, it would be extreme.

Remaining unaware, the redhead concentrated on the match about to start before them. She and her friends had taken to sit at the roots of a big tree while Hope and Capricorn stood in opposite sides of a field just beneath it.

"Hey, guys, I still don't get why Hope's actually doing all this. I mean someone with his condition shouldn't even be pushing himself." Lucy admitted.

"Well, we all wondered at one point or another but he's working things out just fine." Gray said.

"That's easy," The two looked at Natsu as he spoke. "...He wants to be strong. He doesn't like fighting but when he's always ready to defend a comrade. He's the kind of guy who'd just do his best at whatever it is he's doing and not sweat the small stuff."

"That was surprisingly succinct," Erza smiled.

Gray thumped the pink haired teen on the back with a grin, getting an irritated glare in the process "Now that's old friends! You guys really know each other."

Happy remembered asking Hope a similar question and being baffled by the answer. Hope didn't seem like someone who'd pursue strength without a strong reason. It was then that the templar had confided in him the true reason. A number of people from his old home were killed in front of him when he was 6 and he hated how helpless he was at the time. He wanted to get stronger and make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Happy completely understood the feeling and rooted for his friend from then on.

Hope tightened his hold on his combined double edged blade before jumping to dodge Capricorn's kick. His weapon now seemed more like a staff because of the coating of light he placed on it just before they started. It was a spar after all and Hope didn't want to risk injuring the spirit after he'd just recovered.

Not missing a beat, the templar somersaulted and landed behind Capricorn, striking his arm and leg before being pushed back by a punch. Pulling off another back flip, he balanced himself and used Cross Drive, which missed but an unfazed Hope charged in and struck Capricorn leg again.

The spirit caught his leg and retaliated, Hope thought fast and surrounded his body with an aura of light that startled Capricorn into dropping him. The white paladin then went to strike the spirit on the chest before taking the chance to use a weaker version of Luminous Tornado. He quickly switched to sword form and dodged Capricorn's following kick. Close combat wise, he had come to do well in long and close range combat, thanks in part to training and their guildmates' (mainly Makarov, Gray, Erza and Loke) advice.

"Nicely done." Hope smiled at his opponent's praise. "You're much stronger than I expected."

"You do realize I couldn't fight you with my full strength back then."

"I do." Both remembered the spirit's oppressor, Zoldeo and his subordination magic. "Which is why I've been meaning to ask, how is it that you were able to deal with that trick?...And what you did at the end of the fight..."

"...Let's just say I'm a bit of a special case for now. The other part's complicated...'' He could tell that Endymion was completely on board with this and what he was about to say next. "...and to explain it I'll have to get into some things I'd rather not mention, let alone remember."

"Then let's leave it at that." Capricorn said. He could certainly understand having experiences you didn't want to remember.

But all talk aside, it was time to finish this fight. The two engaged in close combat then, Capricorn was surprised but pleased at the fact that he never once managed to knock Hope's swords away from their owner. The boy was skilled enough to treat them as extensions of his body.

He dodged Hope's next few strikes, which gave him time to stun his opponent with an elbow to the gut before unleashing a flurry of attacks. Hope managed to block over half of them and dodge the last two and dropped a sent out four spheres of light that danced around Capricorn before letting out energy beams that grazed the spirit as he destroyed two spheres, only left vulnerable to a Star Gladius.

Noticing how his next Thousand Ray failed, Hope decided that it was enough. "...Sorry, but I think I'm going to call this off. If we keep this up, I don't think I'll be able to do much of anything later."

Correctly understanding that the boy was reserving his stamina, Capricorn nodded "Understandable. Allow me to say that it was a good fight."

"Hope's way tougher than I thought," Lucy said as she applauded their friends.

Natsu grinned "He just keeps getting better."

"I'd watch out Natsu, he may very well defeat you." Erza said with a smirk.

"What?! No way!"

"I wouldn't be so sure. Trust me, he's gotten so far that he improved his sword style immensely. Hope made full use of our sessions"

"And I told you, you're wrong!"

Lucy's eyes widened "Does that mean Hope actually studied under Erza?"

"I had the same reaction but no, he knew how to sword fight. He just wanted tips from her," Gray answered with a shrug. Studying under the overly serious redhead was not something he'd wish on anybody...

"Erza's playing him like a harp too..." Happy said flatly.

"Lucy-sama, are you interested in training? I'd be more than happy to help you." Capricorn offered.

"Hmm...not today, but I'll make sure to get back to you on that." She replied.

"Very well."

"Natsu, you totally lost me, what're you talking about?" Hope asked. Why would he be asking for a fight now?

"Erza's sayin' she thinks you can beat me."

"? But we pretty much tied a whole bunch of times, right?"

Natsu blinked, there were times when he'd ask his best friend for a fight out of boredom. Hope didn't have any problem obliging and a number of them did end in a draw. "Oh yeah, yosh, in that case let's have another fight, it's been a while from the last one!" The dragon slayer exclaimed excitedly.

Shaking his head, Hope said "Why not? You're going to have to wait on it, though."

"Yeah, I know. Watching you go at it, got me totally psyched for a fight."

"You were fighting before we left the guild."

"Ah, that? It's just the usual thing, it doesn't count. Anyway, let's grab a bite before anything."

Happy flew up to them. "You're going to eat before you fight? I thought you'd want the other way around."

"Well, we're not supposed to eat before we go at it, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that goes for swimming."

"Yeah?"

Erza, Lucy and Gray fell into step with the three once Lucy dismissed Capricorn. The celestial mage sighed "He's even picking a fight with Hope of all people...I get the feeling I should be surprised but I'm really not."

Gray laughed "Now you're getting the hang of things, Luce. It's Natsu, what did you expect?"

* * *

 

Eventually, the guild members took to training of their own as they knew Phantom was coming for revenge any day...

The day just came sooner than they expected.


	9. Chapter 9

Aria grinned, looking down from their guild's mobile HQ as the members of Fairy tail came to take a look at the sight approaching Magnolia. "The weaklings already recovered? They must have some impressive healer."

"Weaklings?!" Droy scowled.

Athena's veil wasn't healing magic per say but Hope's efforts worked wonders in Team Shadow Gear's recovery, leaving them ready and raring to go to defend their guild.

Jet growled "All you guys are good at is sneaking up on people so come on here and let's see what you got."

"And why should he bother? We have you right where we want you." Jose's voice ran through the air, a cannon appeared in the front of the HQ's gates. "Either hand over Lucy Heartfilia or let Magnolia be obliterated by the power of Jupiter the magical cannon!"

"Now who didn't see that coming?" Gray asked. "They probably already know our answer too."

"Yeah, get ready," Erza growled.

"It's not like we're trying to kidnap her," Jose continued. "We were commissioned by her father to return her safely."

Makarov knew Jose thought he had a slim chance of avoiding a fight, something he dismissed with a snort. "Oh, yeah? And you really think we'll let her go after all this?"

"Exactly! If Lucy doesn't want to go back then we won't let you force her!" Natsu cried

"Yeah, as if we're going to hand Lu-chan over to you people!" Levy added.

This was followed by the rest of the guild staunchly supporting the statement.

"Come off it!"

"Yeah, she ain't going no where!"

"You're just spouting crap to satisfy your actions!"

"Lucy's staying with us!"

"Everyone..." Lucy wanted to stop them and tell them that it was very much true.

Mira looked at her "Lucy, I hope you're not actually considering that suggestion."

"You said you love being in Fairy tail because it feels like a real family, well plenty of us agree. The guild's a home to many of us," Hope paused. "If you feel so strongly about this then you decide what you want to do. We don't know your entire stuation but as your friends, we'll help you."

"Exactly," Makarov nodded. They were united in their determination to support her and protect her from Phantom."We can clear that later, the one thing we can agree on is that you can't go with that bunch. Nothing good will come of it, I can tell you that. You want to stay? You're more than welcome, let's just get rid of the pests first."

Hope smiled warmly "It'll be all right. You're one of us so of course we'll help you. They can't beat us if we work together."

Lucy gave a shaky but very real smile in return "Yeah!"

Jose then spoke, his voice turning cold. "I see talking big runs in the family, Makarov. Tell me how you'll get rid of this to help your friends?" Even though they couldn't see it, it was clear from his tone that the enemy leader was sneering.

At this, Jupiter fired. Many didn't know what to do with the massive energy blast headed their way.

Grimacing, Erza prepared to try and block it when Hope walked past her till he was a safe distance away from them. She was about to go when she realized that the boy was casting a spell.

Did he actually have anything that helped in this situation?

"Spirits that sing of all that is pure, you who protected us snce the dawn of time, grant me your blessing." Hope chanted, a gold spell circle surrounded him and Jupiter at that. "Sacred Trigram: Guardian Field!"

The circles flashed and two rings came out of them, surrounding the magical blast. At the same time, a golden energy dome surrounded Fairy tail's side. Hope concentrated his energy and the rings shone in response to the surge, making the blast freeze when it neared the dome. Hope waved his hand around and the blast flashed before surging down and striking Phantom's HQ.

"Impossible!" Jose said in a choked voice as the structure started to crash to the ground.

"Awesome!" Natsu cheered with his friends.

Hope swayed a little in his place before he fell back, surprised when he landed in Erza's arms. She smiled "Great work."

He smiled weakly back before whispering something in her ear. Her brown eyes narrowed a bit as she saw a shadow nearing her friends. "I should have thought so. Leave things to us now."

His smile returned after that for a moment before he gave into his exhaustion and promptly passed out. That spell had consumed a lot of his magic power. Erza placed him against a tree before taking a sword and going on to strike at it with a burst of speed that made her seem like a blur.

Before they quite knew, a man clad in a earthy brown tuxedo emerged out of the spot she hit with a scowl. He was about to attack again when Makarov's enlarged fist stopped him in his tracks, the man was fast enough to just avoid it.

"Who the heck is that?" Gray asked.

"It's just like Hope said after all..." Erza muttered.

"Che, that boy is much more troublesome than I anticipated." The man said in a displeased tone, thinking it was luck that let the boy save his grandfather from their trick in the first battle but clearly it wasn't so simple. "It seems I'll have to dispose of him as well."

"Oh, yeah?" Natsu snarled, as he and Elfman positioned himself in front of the unconscious White Paladin with Mira going behind them to pick the boy up. "Just try it, I dare you.'' 

"Hold up, Natsu, you all should go to their HQ." Elfman piped up.

"No way..."

"He's right, this time we're going to end this mess. Hope took of that troublesome cannon so what we'll have to deal with will be their members." Makarov said.

"...All right, beat him real good, you hear?" Natsu asked.

Elfman grinned "Who do you think you're talking to?" Natsu, Happy, Gray, Erza and Makarov left.

"Lucy, I trust you know what to do!" Erza called. 

"Definitely!" She nodded, putting on a determined face. She wouldn't let her friends down. Cana had suggested hiding her when they saw the giant mage coming but she refused. There was no way she'd stay back while they fought for her. She glanced at Hope while covering Mira as she took the boy away from the battle and remembered his words, knowing he was wanted to stay in Fairy tail and she was more than happy to fight with all her strength for her guild and freedom.

With that thought in mind, she grabbed a key.

"Gate of the Archer, I open thee! Sagittarius!"

* * *

 

"Hey, what are those?"

Natsu looked up at Happy's inquiry, seeing that the cat was pointing outside. A horde of eerie dark figures left the HQ, all heading in the same direction. "What the heck..."

"Those would be Master Jose's shade troopers." A man with black and white hair wearing a mostly orange outfit came out of the shadows. "And they're heading to annihilate your friends now."

"Yeah? You guys didn't learn from last time, huh? Who do you think iis going to do the annihilating here?"

"You're the ones who ran away before." The man pointed out calmly. "Make no mistake, you lot stand no chance against us. I, Totomaru of the Element 4, will be the one to defeat you!"

* * *

 

Elfman grunted as he tried to punch Sol, who responded by diving into the ground again. He attempted another Take over, changing his arm into a scaly red and green form. He could see with the corner of his eye, his comrades fighting the eerie shades. Thing is, what ever they seemed to hit him with never worked. They would just reform like nothing happened. The odds weren't good at all...

* * *

 

"Take this, moshi-moshi!" Saggitarius fired a couple of arrows at the approaching shades. Clearing out a way for Lucy to get into the guild and place Hope inside. The boy had yet to awaken, not that she expected anything else. What he did before was no small feat after all. She decided to dismiss Saggitaris and try summoning a spirit with more destructive power to help. The celestial mage had already decided that she would stand by the guild, no matter what.

* * *

 

Erza and Makarov ended up going in the same direction. Only for their path to be blocked by what appeared to be a massive shade twice their size.

"What in the world is that?"

Jose's voice could be heard as he laughed, reverberating throught the formerly floating castle. "You're fast but can you do something about this?"

"I can." Erza snarled. "Master, you should go stop him. Leave this abomination to me."

"All right, careful now!"

The redheaded mage gripped her sword tightly as she took a battle stance.

* * *

 

"You're persistent. How about this? Purple fire!'' 

Natsu dodged the purple flames headed towards him and scowled. He couldn't seem to hit Totomaru at all. The man claimed to be able to control all types of fire magic. So far there was nothing to disprove his words.

"I told you it's pointless." Totomaru smirked when his following attack hit. "Fire magic is completely useless against me."

He blinked when Natsu swallowed his flame "Who do you think you're talking to? If you think you can take me down like that then you've got another thing coming, pal!"

Totomaru just grinned, finally realizing who his opponent was"This will be interesting...guess it evens things out."

* * *

 

Jose smirked as he watched Fairy tail fighting his shades from a lacrima in the main hall of his HQ. "It's useless to resist. The shades are cursed beings who sap your life once they touch you. You're only stalling for time. We will be ready to launch Abyss Break soon."

* * *

 

Cana blasted one of the shades back with her magic and stepped back. She, Lucy and Taurus were standing near the guild.

Mirajane was tending to Hope inside, wishing she could do something else to help. But even as an S-Class Mage, she had lost her powers after the incident three years. Endymion felt the same but there wasn't much of anything he could do at the moment without risking Hope's life. One thing he never wanted to do. Their connection meant that while he wouldn't be able to fight much with his partner's currently low reserve of magic, he wouldn't deal with the consequences, Hope would. And in his state at the moment...

No, he just couldn't do that. The phoenix had made this information clear a long time ago so their comrades knew what to expect, so they likely knew their predicament.

Mira looked through the window and noticed that while their guildmates were still fighting the shades, there was no sign of Elfman or Sol anywhere. This just made her worry more, not without good reason...

"Wonder why that guy lead Elfman back to their HQ." Lucy muttered.

"He can take care of himself. Elfman's a Fairy tail mage too after all," Cana said. "What I really want to know is what's Abyss Break?"

She turned to Cana at that, coming to the door. She never got to answer because of what happened next...

* * *

 

"Hm, so the rumors are true, it seems." Sol said with a french accent as he dodged Elfman's blow. "Come now, I'm one of the Element 4, do you really think you can take me down with such a half-hearted form?"

"Half-hearted?! I'm a Man, I never do anything half-heartedly!" Elfman snapped, offended.

"Really? So why are you using your Take over magic on your arm?" Sol asked. "I know about you, you're that demon Mirajane's brother. Since she had the ability to take that powerful form, it would make sense that you do with your magic." Sol stopped to dodge another punch. "Ah, pardon moi, I've forgotten. She lost her power in that incident, didn't she? Such a shame, all that talent wasted..."

Elfman snarled, trying to hit again. "Shut up! Don't mock Nee-chan!"

"Roche concerto!" Rocks began falling on him, a smirking Sol appeared behind the rocks. "From what I recall, you lost control of your take-over magic and killed the poor girl in the process. No wonder you're afraid to try it again..."

Elfman growled as his attempts to counterattack just continued to fail. He changed his arm into the Iron bull's again and went to attack when a familiar figure rose before him that made him freeze in his spot.

It was of a girl with remarkable similarity to Mirajane wearing a pink shirt and red dress over it. She was pale and her eyes were dull but this was without a doubt, their younger sister. "L-Lisanna..."

"Ah, pardon," Sol spoke up. "I happened to look into your memories when you came earlier so this is the girl? Where...Ah, I forgot. Excuse my manners, she's dead."

* * *

 

Natsu growled with frustration. This was getting them no where!

Happy observed this with a frown "They're looking even, fire magic's useless here..."

Mentally agreeing with the assesment, Natsu decided to drop the magic and just engage in close combat with his enemy. Totomaru smirked then, bringing out a katana.

Minutes passed as the two continued the fight, both not giving an inch. It was looking to be another stalemate when Natsu suddenly stepped back and began casting another spell. Totomaru rolled his eyes "You never learn, Salamander. That's useless on me."

"Oh, yeah?" Natsu just summoned a bigger flame that surrounded him then before he started running and preparing to attack again.

Totomaru tried to redirect it, and ending up shocked to realize he couldn't. 'This guy...since when could he do this?...'

"Lesson number one," Natsu began, giving a fire powered kick that had him reeling. "My flames are mines alone, don't move them without my permission! And number two..." He gave the man a powerful punch that sent him crashing into the wall.

"Don't mess with Fairy tail."

* * *

 

Elfman's eyes widened at the sight before him. Mirajane was being held by a rock fist conjured by his enemy!

"Like the little surprise?" Sol asked.

"You bastard, let her go!"

"Not a chance, we do have to get rid of you all to complete our mission so she's a target as well. I thought it would be nice to have some audience here."

Elfman stood, and the earth member of the element 4 continued. "You're just a big mouth who runs off talking about manliness. As I am a gentleman, I find that unforgivable. Allow me to make you one with the land." A magic circle appeared over Elfman "Sealing Magic: Merci La Vie."

"No!" Mirajane gasped, trying to break free. He was turning her brother to stone! "Elfman!"

* * *

 

Elfman fell to his knees as the memories continued. It was awful, first it was one of his memories with Lisanna when they were kids and he even remembered watching them leave as Lisanna bid Natsu, Happy and Hope goodbye. Lisanna's attempts to make his beast form regain control failed and that ended up in her death...

Elfman was had nearly turned to stone at this point, but in his mind, he was watching a memory of him and Mira by their sister's grave. He had blamed himself for this but Mira assured him that it wasn't their fault and that it was just Lisanna's time had come. They then promised to live their lives fully in her place.

* * *

 

"Elfman!"

Sol smiled "I wouldn't waste my breath, madame. He's done."

A tear slipped past Elfman's cheek as he stood, the stone cracked and fell off his body as it radiated with power. "I made a promise that time...Never to see Nee-chan's tears again! I'll become a man strong enough to protect her! Lisanna died because of my powerlessness and I'll do whatever I can to not feel like that again."

Mira realized what he was up to and cried "Elfman, no! Don't..."

But he was then enveloped by the power and massive beast took his place, it let out a massive roar.

"I-Impossible!" Sol gaped, starting to feel worried. The beast stepped towards him, making him sweat. "A-a-ll I did was give you a t-trial t-t-to overcome your past! And you did it! You're the manliest among men!"

But it didn't do any good and the beast wasted no time in beating him down and leaving him unconscious.

"Elfman?" Mirajane said tentatively when he lowered her to the ground.

Her brother turned back to his human form. "I'm sorry...you probably never wanted to see that again. It's only because I couldn't control it that..."

She shook her head, smiling and giving him a hug. "I told you before, that wasn't your fault. I'm still here with your help. We're still going to live her share, right?"

"...Right." He answered in a choked voice, hugging her back.

* * *

 

Gray arrived at the roof, blinking when he realized it was raining. "Huh...never noticed..."

A figure in blue stood in the shadows, watching him "...Drip, drip, drop."


	10. Chapter 10

No matter how he thought of it, he just didn't get it.

Gray ran into Juvia, the Rain Woman of the Element 4 on the roof and they soon engaged in battle. What he really didn't get was the woman's odd behavior. He was sure he spotted her blushing as he started casting another spell. Were his eyes playing tricks on him or something?

Now Gray wasn't usually thick when it came to things like this but he had no way of knowing then that Juvia was actually falling for him. They were enemies in war after all.

"There's no point in this." Juvia said as Gray's ice lance hit her, making parts of her body fade out. "Juvia's body is made from water so you can't stop me. Just hand over Lucy Heartfilia and Juvia will convince Master to stop the battle. Juvia promises."

"No way." responded Gray. "This has gone too far to just stop and Lucy's my comrade. I won't hand her over to you lot even if it costs me my life."

That statement, concise as it was, had quite the effect on Juvia.

Gray was surprised when the place was her next attack struck left steam, it took him a few moments to realize that this was boiling water. Juvia was enraged now, thinking that Gray was in love with Lucy which is why he was going so far for her.

She would not take this.

* * *

 

Lucy watched the proceeding battle with a frown. Taurus had reacted earlier when the mud golems emerged to catch her and stopped them but they left with Mirajane before anyone could stop them. The only comfort was that Makarov and the others were in the Giant Mage now and they would save her.

The problem was that those shades were relentless. Whatever they did just didn't work. She was at a loss at what to do. The celestial mage even considered handing herself over to stop this but she was quickly stopped by Cana and Reedus, who assured that her that they would all fight with all they had.

The fact was, even if she had surrendered, there was no way Phantom Lord would let the battle end at that. It didn't matter though, as all of Fairy Tail was determined to ensure one thing.

They would not let Phantom win.

* * *

 

"It's the end!"

Gray grimaced as he took the jet of boiling water and slowly began to froze it, much to Juvia's shock. But he also ended up freezing Juvia herself and with that position his hand was on her breast!

He freaked out, his eyes almost bugging out of their skull for a moment as he yelped "Sorry, my bad!"

Juvia just blushed, blinking in surprise when he released her from the ice. "...You are so kind."

"Ah...er, let's start over, yeah?"

"...I can't hurt you."

"You mean you got no shot here?"

"Juvia is stronger than Lucy. Juvia can protect you."

"Wait, what?"

Seeing the ice mage's confusion, Juvia decided to admit the truth. "Ah, that is ..."

Gray frowned as he looked up "...The rain's getting stronger...it's starting to become depressing."

Something in Juvia snapped then as memories of her childhood surfaced. Kids wouldn't play with her and called her gloomy because she brought rain with her. She couldn't even have a loving relationship and broke up with her boy friend because of that. Phantom Lord just took her in, faults and all. It was this thought that hardened her determination once more.

"I'm a Phantom Mage!" She declared. "Juvia of the Element 4!" She broke out of the ice and charged at Gray with boiling water.

"Yeah, I know." Gray prepared himself. "So I'm not losing here! Ice Make: Geyser!

Even if she was caught in the attack, Juvia couldn't help but be in awe of the result. Gray had even frozen the rain!

She began to fall as the ground underneath fell apart, thinking it was a fitting end. Gray surprised her by catching her hand and pulling her up.

"You, why...?"

"So, cooled down now?" He asked calmly.

The sun began to shine then, and Juvia began to cry. "The rain...it's gone. Juvia can feel the sunlight...its been so long..."

Gray blinked "For real? Pretty good, isn't it?" He stood. "Feel like going another round?"

Juvia promptly fainted then, confusing him.

* * *

 

Natsu and Happy had ran into Aria and promptly the first and the last got into battle. But Natsu was losing badly, he couldn't even see Aria's magic and it was completely blocking him off.

The two momentarily stopped when the wall crashed to their right and Erza came out, facing the massive shade trooper.

"What is that?!" A freaked out Happy said.

"Hey, it kinda looks like those things outside..." Natsu observed.

"That's because it is. Whatever we hit them with, they just reform. I'm stopping this one and Master's gone to face Jose, what's going on here?" Erza inquired.

"Just dealing with this guy..." Natsu said as they stood with their backs behind each other as they faced their enemies. "You getting tired yet, Erza?"

"I'm going to take that as a joke and ask you the same thing." She replied with a smirk.

Natsu grinned back and used Fire Dragon's Roar on Aria who blocked with Airspace.

"Well, since Titania's here it's time I got serious." Aria said. "...It's sad that both your heads are going to roll."

* * *

 

"This is bad...everyone's getting tired..." Bisca muttered.

Alzack stepped next to her. "I don't blame them. Nothing we ever do works, they're losing spirit and that's the problem."

"We can't lose here. Natsu and the others are fighting the main forces." Cana reminded.

"Yeah, if they think we'll lose here than they have another thing coming." Macao nodded.

And the fight continued, the fairy tail mages were well matched here but the shades just came back again and again.

Loke inwardly growled, it's like things just got worse and worse. If all this wasn't bad enough than Gajeel coming to take Lucy was definitely a big problem.

The dragon slayer grinned as he knocked Taurus aside with a metal club "That all you got?"

Lucy scowled back and called him back before summoning Capricorn, who stood protectively before her.

* * *

 

The sounds of the battle were resounding in the currently empty guild. Hope opened his eyes to find himself lying propped against a wall, confused. Why was he so tired?

Oh, yeah...he remembered casting Guardian Field. Wait, by the sound of it, his friends were still fighting. He cringed as he tried to stand soon, realizing that he couldn't just yet. Hope scowled, he could see a shade reform through the window after an attack hit. There was no way he would watch them fight without doing anything.

Then an idea came to him. That could work, at least it could help until he could move properly. With the thought in mind and Endymion's support, he used his remaining power to cast a spell. He had an idea on how to deal with the shades and so imbued his memoria magic in it. It was lucky the templars knew methods to mix their magic with that of the elements. He had used those to come up with a spell of his own.

"Saint Air."

* * *

 

Gajeel stopped when he saw something flash in the guild. That looked a lot like a magic circle. So they had someone hiding in there?

He didn't get to think about it because then numerous silver tinted spheres of light came out of the building and struck all the shades, making them freeze up and then disappear. It didn't stop at that. The spheres then merged together to form two birds of pure light, one flew to the giant mage while the other let out three beams of light that hit Gajeel and his guildmates, making them lose consciousness and the dragon slayer grunt as he jumped back.

"What was that?" Lucy asked, she noticed that her guildmates were smiling.

"...As reliable as ever." Loke said.

Macao grinned "You said it."

* * *

 

Elfman and Mirajane noticed the bird approaching the mage and the second smiled.

"Nee-chan, is that...?"

"Yup, we got all the help we need here. Look."

They could see that the shade troopers were gone. Elfman grinned "Awesome!"

* * *

 

Makarov was dealing with a number of shades himself when the bird sailed past him and flew through them, it instantly obliterated them into nothing.

The guildmaster smiled, count on Hope to help even now.

* * *

 

The bird's last stop was at the place where Natsu and Erza were fighting Aria and the shade, the bird tackled the mage first before taking the shade out.

"That's..." Erza began, she, Natsu and Happy then smiled.

"What is this magic? It even got through my barrier!" Aria exclaiimed

"I told you he was getting stronger, didn't I?" Erza smirked at the pink haired dragon slayer, who grinned back

"I figured that one out on my own, Erza."

* * *

 

"Huh, so this is the one that did it..."

Loke whirled around at that, alarmed. Through the commotion, Gajeel had entered the guild and come across Hope, who was trying to remain conscious. 

"So, a kid did all that? Guess Fairy tail picks some decent people..." Gajeel muttered.

"Leave him alone!" Lucy shouted.

"Fine by me. He looks like he'll be troublesome for now." The iron dragon slayer could sense a powerful aura surrounding the boy even now. A part of him was wondering who the heck the kid was but he knew he had to get to business "You're the one I'm here for anyway."

* * *

 

Erza had no problems defeating Aria after that. The real trouble started when Jose arrived. She knew the man was a wizard saint after all and she doubted that anyone besides their Master stood a chance against him. Jose likely knew that too, why else would he avoid a battle between wizard saints?

Natsu growled when he took down Gray and Elfman quickly, preparing to attack himself. But Erza stopped him "Natsu, remember what Aria said. Gajeel's going after Lucy, so he'll likely be fighting against our friends now. You need to get there. I know you can beat him and protect her. I have no doubts that you will surpass me one day. So I know you can handle him."

"...You bet. They're not going to win after all this." He said at last. "Come on, Happy!"

"Aye sir!" Happy held the back of his shirt before flying off.

* * *

 

"This guy's a monster!" Alzack growled. Gajeel seemed to be able to block his bullets without even blinking. He was even giving Capricorn a run for his money as he continued to wear the spirit down.

"I'm impressed you're actually standing." He commented casually. "But how about this? Iron Dragon's Lance: Demon logs!"

The group fighting him was struck with a number of spears that sent them crashing to the ground. Gajeel was about to attack again when someone stepped in front of him and grabbed his fist before giving him a kick that had him reeling.

Gajeel grinned when he saw who it was as the Fairy tail members smiled "You made it in time, Salamander."

"...I've never seen Natsu like this." Lucy commented. He was battling more fiercely than ever.

"Yeah...he's gotta be going out more than ever. This is the first time he's been up against another dragon slayer." Happy said.

Cana turned to him. "Whoa, hold up, what do you mean? That guy's another one?"

"Yeah, Natsu says that guy's scent told him he has similar magic."

"That clears up a few things. And he looks just as strong as Natsu."

Natsu dodged a blow from Gajeel's blade and heard his enemy say "Time to end this, Salamander."

"Yeah? Ain't that too bad, I'm just gettin' started!"

Gajeel's skin turned a bluish silver color and he aimed a punch at Natsu, who dodged it but the spectators could feel the wind the attack caused from their place.

"He just powered up again! This is nuts..." Macao grunted.

"Fire Dragon's Claw!"

This struck Gajeel but Natsu had to bite a yelp as he stepped back. Capricorn noticed this and said "The attack actually hurt him too. He's powered up his defenses as well..."

The battle continued with Gajeel dodging most of Natsu's attacks, till he was hit by a Brilliant Flame, followed by a fire powered punch.

"Give it a rest, Salamander. You may be able to burn things to ash but it won't matter because you won't affect my steel." Gajeel said.

"Oh, yeah?"

A crack slowly appeared on Gajeel's face then, shocking everyone to silence.

"My flames are dragon flames, you know? They'll burn anything." Natsu said. "Time to get serious."

"...Yeah, there ain't enough room for two dragons in the sky."

The two engaged in close combat again as they jumped in mid-air. For a few minutes, they were all evened out.

When the two separated, the spectators noted that both dragon slayers must be getting worn down. They'd even given up using magic and went all physical. It looked like the rematch would come to an end soon.

"So all Dragon slayers can power up by eating their own element?! You have got to be kidding me!" Lucy said once Gajeel ate an axe that must have belonged to one of the fighters.

"Well, this just keeps getting better..." Bisca grumbled sarcastically.

Natsu stopped "Man, I didn't think it would come in handy now." He took a piece of a fiery red rock from his pocket and ate it, grinning as he felt power come back to him. "Perfect!"

"Was that just..." Happy began.

"A piece of the fire crystal from back then? Glad he listened to us." Lucy smiled a bit. So it came in handy after all.

Natsu's hands lit up with flames "Gotta thank Hope for this later." He really thought the templar was worrying too much when he said Natsu might need the item for later. (The scientists didn't want anything to have to do with that item so they let them take it. The rest of Natsu's team decided that he would be the one to make the most use of it). Lucy had advised him to at least keep a piece with him just in case. Man, was he glad he heeded their words now! 

And the battle resumed once more. Gajeel grinned "So, you had something like that up your sleeve? Guess you're not as stupid as I heard."

"Say what now!?" Natsu snarled as the two separated.

"Fire Dragon's Roar!"

"Iron Dragon's Roar!"

The combined spells caused quite the shock wave in the surroundings but they seemed even out. Natsu growled and concentrated his power. He found that it came surprisingly easy. His fury at Gajeel seemed to power him up, making him recall what he knew about the flames of emotion.

The iron dragon slayer had wrecked their guild, hurt his friends and to top it off, he was enjoying it all with that ridiculous expression. Well, Natsu wouldn't let him get away with it. He blocked Gajeel's Hard Fist barehanded, somehow causing cracks with his enemy's scales and shocking him.

They had gotten a fair distance away from the spectators now and were nearing Phantom's HQ again when Natsu attacked again.

"Crimson Lotus: Fire Dragon Fist!"

The move ended the battle, defeating Gajeel and wrecking the HQ in the process.

"Whew..."

"Damn." Natsu blinked and looked up to be met with a grinning Macao. "You just keep getting stronger, don't you? That was crazy."

Natsu grinned "You know it!"

"...You went overboard as always but you were pretty cool." Lucy beamed when Natsu gave her a thumbs up in response.

* * *

 

Mean while...

Erza was the only one standing against Jose, who had defeated the rest. But she was having some trouble too. The man was strong, she'd give him that.

He jumped back to dodge her slash and smirked "I planned to get rid of Makarov's power and make him suffer but I didn't think that White Paladin would ruin that plan so easily. I think I'll make sure to get him as we go for Lucy. He seems to be an interesting boy. There's clearly more to him than meets the eye."

Erza growled, like she'd like that happen!

"But it matters not. It won't change much in my plan." Erza made a disgusted face and wasted no time in verbalizing those feelings when her enemy continued. "My guild was always the one on top but Fairy tail suddenly rose in the ranks pretty quickly. People even call you lot our rivals. You were once such a weak guild."

Erza attacked again "So, this war was to soothe your petty jealousy?"

He captured her with a spell called Shade Entangle "Oh, now who said anything like that? I needed to prove which was the superior guild. You were getting on my nerves for a long time but then Jude Heartfilia came and hired to get his daughter back. How great do you have to be to become satisfied? Fairy tail now can use the Heartfilia's money to become even stronger and I won't allow that!"

"You must be joking! Lucy ran away from home. She lives in a rented apartment, one which she works very hard to get the money for. She doesn't want a single coin of her family's money. We worked, laughed and cried together! She's our comrade! What do you know about her tears?"

"Not much but I'll know soon enough. I plan to return her after I make sure to bleed her family dry." Jose answered calmly.

A blast of light struck Erza's binds and disintegrated them. As her armor reformed, the mage turned to the source to find "Master..."

"Good, you're all awake." He said as the following exclamations. "You need to leave this place."

"Wait, what?..." Gray began.

"Gray, don't." Erza interjected. "We'd just get in his way."

"It's been over six years since we last met now, isn't that right?" Jose said, preparing to fight. "I'm so glad I get to prove my superiority over you, Makarov."

"My children, thank you all for the hard work. You should all be very proud to be in Fairy tail." Makarov muttered, their opposing magic began to clash with the sky rumbling at the sheer force that caused. "You have earned your place with the Wizard Saints but if you had used for power for good, the world would have benefited from you."

"Are you trying to preach me?"

"It's my guild custom system, I'll give you three counts to kneel." Makarov changed to Titan form.

"One."

Jose laughed, noticing the light in his enemy's hands and ignoring the countdown "You must be joking. You're the one who should bow to me! Fairy tail should vanish off the face of face of the earth."

"...Three."

A great golden circle appeared in the sky as Makarov was surrounded by an aura of light. Bright light then shot out, Jose stepped back, looking very afraid.

"What is that?" asked Lucy, they could see the light all the way from their side.

"...Fairy Law." She looked at Erza. "It's a righteous light that slays the darkness, only the ones the caster's heart see as the enemies are affected."

"...Amazing."

Jose fell. Makarov didn't even turn as his fist extended to punch Aria who had appeared behind him. "It's about time you cut your losses. Get your master and leave before I change my mind."

* * *

 

Natsu was placed inside the guild, he was entirely too tired to move. He could see the effect of Fairy law through the window. "...Damn, leave it to Gramps to blow us away."

"Yeah."

He blinked and turned to Hope, who was now awake and watching the sight with a smile. The templar looked at him. "You did great back there."

Natsu grinned "Back at ya. You were watching?"

"The whole thing."

"Those shields you put up held up pretty well, you know."

"You noticed that?"

He hadn't till his fight with Gajeel but the golden glow around the guild and a bit of their surroundings tipped him off and the magic felt like Hope's.

"They were supposed to last longer than that. It was the first time I tried it."

"Ah, don't sweat the details. It all worked out and whatever you did to get those creepy things was great. It was all about team work, that's what got us this far."

Hope smiled "Yeah." Natsu held up his fist and Hope did the same before bumping them together.


	11. Chapter 11

"This is crazy..." Lucy muttered. Hope was searching through some papers Makarov had him bring while blocking a stray ice spell from Gray with his free hand and reducing it to nothing via the memoria spell called Zero Ray. He had put up his hand and cast it without so much as blinking in their direction. It was either that he was really used to this, or Endymion was keeping an eye out for him, she reasoned.

"Ara, it looks like Hope has things under control." Mira smiled.

Hope blinked "Got it!"

Makarov took the paper with a thanks before turning to yell at Natsu and Gray "Will you two knock it off already?!"

That, along with Erza looking in their direction, made the fire and ice mages hurry and get back to work.

Happy looked back at the part of the guild they finished and smiled "You're getting better, you know. That's half the guild done already."

"Yeah, I needed to get more magic power back before trying anything else." Hope admitted. He didn't know much templars around here so he ended up picking all his spells (except Saint Air) from books. Rebuilding the guild with his magic was easy, all he had to do was keep a clear picture of the guild and use the lacrima charged with magic that Makarov prepared to kick things off. Due to his own inexperience however, he could only apply this on a limited area, leaving the others to take care of the rest.

The thing was, Makarov wanted to take the chance to renew the guild's design. So with his magic finishing up the base Hope, along with everyone else, was following the blue prints for this.

"Yeah, that's a pretty useful ability..." Lucy was talking with Mirajane about the various types of magic their guild mates possessed and the waitress' remark about Hope being the closest thing to a healer next to Porlyusica they had made her think back on the times she had seen it.

"Mmhm, Hope's version is better than the usual, partly because of his own efforts. I think Endymion might have something to do with it too." Mira recalled the phoenix once mentioning having healing powers a long time ago, perhaps that might have influenced Hope's magic after their fusion.

"Wonder what it'd be like if templars tried that spell on themselves. Maybe they'd never age and..."

"Slow down, Lucy. It's not that simple." Mira interjected. "See, what you said is true but they have limits. It's up to the guardian deity of Aetheria, who watches over all the templars and then decides who had exceeded the limit. I mean they can't bring back the dead or anything but they're allowed to save lives. I'm not sure who that deity is but he's powerful, and he's really strict aboutthis. The ones who defy him are severely punished. He guards the flow of time. Hope told me that with the exception of the ones he seeks to contact, the only one allowed a direct connection with him is the Lyrian Altair."

The blonde thought back, remembering reading the title in a few books. She was fairly certain it meant Savior Saint in the ancient language of the templars. "I heard about him. He's the hero who founded Aetheria, the ancestral home of memoria templars and saved the world about two centuries ago, right? For someone reason I never found a clear picture of him." She glanced at Hope. "I get it now. Memoria magic sounds amazing but it's also one where you have to remember never to lose yourself in power. You'd have to tread carefully..."

"That's the idea." Mira nodded. "That's why Templars are generally known to be disciplined."

Loke walked over to Hope and Happy in time to hear the cat say "So Soleanna is actually the shrine built for the time guardian?"

"Yup, it is awfully big though..."

"Wait a second, were you there before? I heard only high class nobles or those who have buisness there were ever allowed in." Loke said, curious. Those who have business pretty much meant people the guardian wanted to talk to.

"Well...if that's true, it could be some place else. For some reason, whenever I think of that place, I just get this image of a place as grand as a palace." Hope admitted.

"Oh, yeah, Hope you haven't been in Aetheria for ages, right?"

"Yeah, it's been over eight years now at least..."

"Since you're the expert, Hope, I thought I'd ask." Loke took out a gold ring with a silvery blue stone "This was part of a reward from my last job, but the client was from Aetheria so can I use it?"

"Sure, but it's more of a one time thing. See, the stone's shining because the energy for the spell is trapped in there. He told you to say a keyword before you use it, right?" Hope received a nod. "Well, that's it. The keyword actually activates the spell and you can then direct it however you want. People who buy those have to be clear about what they plan to use them for."

Loke seemed impressed "Well, given you rare your magic is this is certainly useful."

"Yeah, but what happens if someone lies or tries to misuse the ring?" Happy asked

"Easy, they can't. If anything like that, the ring's going to crumble. It's a fail safe to make sure the ring's power won't be corrupted." Hope answered.

Happy already guessed that the other motive would be to avoid punishment from the guardian so he didn't bring it up. "Huh, that's smart. Templars are pretty crafty too."

Gray stopped and frowned. "Maybe I'm paranoid but it really feels like I'm being watched..."

If he had focused on the wall a little longer, he would've noticed Juvia peeking from there.

* * *

 

"What do you mean Lucy went home?" Gray gaped.

"Erza says she went to see her and found the door open for some reason. She found a bunch of letters to her mother but the place was empty." Natsu answered. "I don't get it. Why'd she go home now?!"

"Slow down, Natsu. Something's not right." Hope pacified his friend. "There's no way Lucy's going back home after all this mess without even telling us. Maybe there's something she needs to do there."

"I sure hope so..." Happy mumbled.

"...I'm still worried though. We better go and check on her, just to make sure nothing happens." Hope continued.

No one was willing to argue, as they all felt the same. Knowing Erza was heading to the station now, the male members of Team Natsu all went in the same direction too.

* * *

 

"Lucy..." The girl frowned as she was met with Jude Heartfilia's cold eyes when she made her way into his office. "I see you finally stopped this foolishness and came back. It was about time."

Lucy said nothing and walked in. The servants had welcomed her heartily into her home and helped her dress up. Now her hair was neatly styled into a bun and she wore a red dress with some accessories. She looked every bit the wealthy lady of the family she was born into and she loathed it.

Jude started talking about his plans from then on, including the arranged marriage for her to someone from a noble family.

That was when Lucy had it.

"That's not why I'm here, Father." She cut him off firmly. "I'm here to cut my ties with you."

"What're you saying? Don't be ridiculous..."

"Ridiculous? That's what it would be if I came back now. This isn't my home anymore." Lucy said bitterly. "It hasn't been for years. I know what the outside world is like now and I love it. I just came to make things clear. I'm not Lucky Lucy of Heartfilia anymore! I'm a mage of Fairy tail now! I'm just Lucy, Lucy of Fairy tail! That guild welcomed me with open arms and I won't forgive you for hurting the people I care about! If you ever try that stunt again, I will fight you with everything I have until I drive my point in." She tore her dress, startling him. "Goodbye, Father."

* * *

 

Lucy sighed as she left the house. That was...oddly relieving.

"There she is!"

She blinked at Happy's voice and was stunned to see her teammates run over to her.

"Lucy!"

"Guys! What're you doing here?!"

"What do you mean? We're here to find you," Natsu said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Clearly Erza couldn't agree more "Really, Lucy what did you think was going to happen when you up and vanished like that? We were worried about you."

"Sorry, you didn't have to be! I just needed to clear things up with my dad and visit mom's grave. I'm sorry you came all the way here..."

Hope smiled "Don't say that, you would've done the same if it was any of us. What're friends for, right?"

"Took the words right out of my mouth." Gray shrugged. "...Gotta say, you sure had some house, whoa..."

"Yeah, it has that effect on people." Lucy said indifferently. She really didn't hold an ounce of affection for this place. Things had been awful since her mother died.

Noticing this, Gray then responded "All right, ready to go back then?"

"I sure am!"

They soon fell in step with each other and began chatting about various subjects. Lucy watched this all with a bright expression till she noticed Hope looking at her and smiling. "What?"

"Oh, just thinking, you look more like your old self now...you seemed so down before but now it's like you did something big."

"Nothing gets past you, I see." Lucy answered. "Yeah, I just...talking with Father at least made me feel like there's this weight off my shoulder. I know it seems normal but I never would have had the guts to do that before this fiasco."

"I think I get what you're saying." Hope said. "Sometimes things just don't seem as scary when you've had time and reason to look at them from a different perspective."

She blinked, surprised "Hey...you know that actually sums it up well. I was really mad so it came out pretty quickly."

"Are you mad now?"

"Nope, just dead tired. Then again, dealing with Natsu and Happy does that to a person."

Hope laughed "Yeah, but I can't imagine them any other way."

"...Unfortunately, I can't either." Lucy couldn't help the smile on her face as she said it. Being around them all cheered her up. Hope always had a warm, somehow calming presence that made him so easy to talk to.

"...You know, it probably isn't my business but I think I should tell you this." The blond motioned him to go on with a nod. "I think maybe, when you feel ready, you should try and fix things up with your dad. Laxus-nii got really upset when Grandpa excommunicated his dad, and he's never been around since."

Lucy had already been cleared on the fact that Hope wasbadopted by Makarov years ago by Natsu so she asked "Wait, Laxus's dad was excommunicated? How come?"

"I don't know. I've never even met him before and it sounds like things are really bad between them. I just overheard them arguing about it before." Hope admitted. "That's just giving me the feeling that if you don't try to fix things up, you might regret it."

"I hear you." Lucy could certainly see where he was going with this. He wanted her to at least get the chance his brother never had.

"Sorry, if it seems like I'm meddling..." He stopped when Lucy flicked his forehead with a finger.

"No over apologizing" She said with a playful tone. Lucy really didn't think he was interfering, he was just being a good friend. "And thanks, maybe I'll try that someday. But..." She trailed off as Happy called them over. "...I've got the time I need to prepare for it."

* * *

 

Cheers erupted in the currently renovated Fairy tail guild once its members were informed that they could take up jobs again.

Lucy didn't see what the excitement was about but she was still pleased for her guildmates for a completely different reason.

Just yesterday she had explained to them that Loke was actually the leader of the zodicas, Leo. He had been staying behind in their world for over three years now since his former owner, Karen was killed. Lucy had learned the truth from Crux and had confronted him about it. Loke had already given up, believing he deserved to die for what happened to Karen. The blond had managed to talk him out of it and convince the Celestial Spirit King to let him go back to the Celestial World to recover.

"So what does he actually look like? You know, his spirit form?" Natsu asked.

"Well...I didn't get to see it actually..."

"Well, he's probably a..."

"It'd be so cool if he was a dragon!" Natsu cut Gray off, lost in excitement. "I can see it now..."

"See what, you idiot? He won't be a dragon, right?" Gray asked Lucy.

"How do you know, Ice princess?!" Natsu asked, annoyed.

'All right, calm down. Gray's saying he'll probably be something like a lion or at least something with a connection to lions. The spirits seem to pretty much resembles their names in appearance.' Endymion pointed out.

"Exactly." Lucy said with a nod.

"Oh..."

Mira smiled. "Well, it was still a great thing you did for him, Lucy. I'm sure Loke will be grateful, you gained a strong ally."

"I know!" She smiled, patting her key holder.

"Say, Natsu." Happy flew over with a job request "How's this for a job?"

The dragon slayer read it "Hm...maybe but I wanna check the board first."

"All right," the cat landed. "Hope, you want in?"

'Even if he did, he can't.' Endymion answered.

Gray nodded "Master said not to let him take any jobs until he fully recovers." Hope nodded to this, trying not to show his weariness, though that wasn't really working. He was really feeling that, now they had just settled down after all the renovating.

"Come to think of it, Hope used a lot of magic power to help get the guild back in shape." Mira said with a concerned look.

Lucy touched his forehead and frowned "Master has the right idea. No surprise you're tired. You're really low on magic."

"Well, in that case, we'll take him home." Happy stated.

Hope blinked "You don't have to..."

"It's fine, we want to." Natsu interjected as Lucy stood, wanting to do the same.

"What did you say?!" They started at Erza's furious voice and found her facing Laxus, who was smirking at her.

"I said it's pathetic. Can't you all manage that one guild on your own?" He returned calmly before glancing at Team Shadow Gear. "You lot are weak. Getting beat up like that..."

"What did you say?!" Jet demanded as Droy glared at him and Levy looked away.

"Hey, that's not true! They fought hard to help everyone out." Lucy defended.

"Says the one who caused the problem." was Laxus' response. "You're as weak as they are. You all must have been pretty useless for Mira to call for me."

The girl clenched her fists, regretting that idea once more. She had tried to get his help just before Phantom's attack but it ended up badly as Laxus said he only would if Cana stripped for him and Lucy became his girl.

Was someone like this really in their guild? A number of the listeners wondered in disgust.

Hope was about to argue when Natsu grabbed his shoulder to make him stop and stepped up. "Where do you even come off, you bastard?! We're the ones who had to fight when you never showed up!"

Laxus snorted "Yeah, I heard about your valiant struggle. It's the reason why Phantom's slayer beat you up and Chibi looks like he's about to faint now. I'm not even sure what the old man is thinking, filling the guild with weaklings."

"Fairy tail ain't weak!" Natsu interrupted.

"Yeah, says the loud mouth weakling." Laxus responded. "You're all bark and no bite and Chibi's not even fit to be a mage."

"Say what?!" Natsu could ignore the attack on him just fine, he had heard worse. But Laxus was trash talking Hope after all the work he put in over the years and that was not something he could let slide. The boy and Endymion had even helped them before actually joining the guild and many of them appreciated their efforts. He was happy to see that a lot of his guildmates agreed with his sentiment, judging by the venomous glares they were giving Laxus.

"So, you ever got around to telling them that secret, Chibi?" Laxus didn't receive a response. "That's what I thought, can't say I blame you. Either way, that getting out might end up in you dying or getting abandoned...Oh, wait, it almost did twice now, isn't that right?"

Many of the Fairy tail members didn't know what that meant but from the way Hope flinched and looked down, they could see that Laxus' words had hit where it hurt. Natsu's reaction was another proof, he was going to attack Laxus had Hope not stopped him. Similarly, it was only Hope that was keeping Endymion from reacting to the blond's words.

Erza might not have not understood what Laxus meant but it did not mean she would let him get away with hurting Hope like this. "Everyone has something to keep for themselves Laxus but whatever it is, I think I speak for everyone when I say we would never abandon Hope. And if it comes to the first one, we'll do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening."

Their guild mates wasted no time in voicing their agreement to this one.

"Of course!"

"You bet!"

"Without a doubt."

Hope looked surprised, it wasn't something easy for him to talk about but he couldn't help smiling gratefully at their friends, glad that they understood. Endymion relaxed, finding himself pleased with the responses.

"Thank you..."

"What're friends for, right?" Lucy winked.

"Besides, at the rate you're going, you'd be getting closer to that second one than Hope ever would." Gray said coolly.

"Please, by the time I'm Master, I'll remove all weaklings from the guild." Laxus dismissed.

* * *

 

"I can't believe that guy!" Cana growled.

"Please tell me he's not going to be Master," Lucy said.

"I can't. He's Master's grandson, remember? Why do you think he put off retirement for so long? Laxus needs to become compassionate before becoming Master."

Natsu snorted "Somehow I don't see that happening..."

"For once we agree." Gray concurred.

"What I really want to know is why he was saying those things before..." Macao said, looking at Hope.

The White Paladin avoided his eye and said "...That's...not something I'm comfortable admitting..."

"So, what he said was true?" Happy frowned.

Hope's silence in itself was an answer, making them all look at the teen with a mixture of shock and concern. Just what on Fiore happened?

"...You do realize we all stand by what Erza said before, right?" Cana pointed out.

"Yeah, there's no way we're letting any of that happen to you. You already proved you'd do the same for us." Natsu said. It went unsaid that the dragon slayer knew what this was about. But Natsu had already told them that he had made a promise not to tell so they didn't want to force him to break it.

"I know and thanks...it's just that...I need sometime before that. I've been keeping it for so long and I'm not ready."

"We can understand that." Erza placed a hand on his shoulder. She knew the past was something Hope avoided and she could sympathize. "As long as you know you can trust us with that secret."

"...I couldn't find people more trustworthy. You're my family."


End file.
